The pseudo-epitaxial growth of an amorphous anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) film within the monocrystalline grain of an aluminum substrate is an amazing feature of the ordering of the porous structure of AAO during the process of aluminum anodization [1].
As the progress in this field, the experiments including the detailed analysis of the morphology of porous oxide films obtained by anodization of Al (100), Al (110), and Al (111) single crystals were performed by our group [2]. The joint use of statistical analysis of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images and high-resolution small-angle X-ray diffraction made it possible to establish the following regularities:
- The greatest number of straight channels is observed in the case when aluminum substrates with a crystallographic orientation (100) are anodized. Such substrates are preferred for the obtaining of high-quality membrane materials [3] and templates for the production of one-dimensional nanostructures [4];
- Aluminum with crystallographic orientation (111) is most promising for obtaining of single-domain porous structures used as two-dimensional photonic crystals and test gratings for atomic force microscopy [5, 6].
The obtained results are of practical value for the industrial production of porous membranes of anodic aluminum oxide. The use of polycrystalline aluminum foils textured in a given crystallographic direction as a starting material makes it possible to obtain porous oxide films with the desired structure and improved functional properties.
[1] K.S. Napolskii, I.V. Roslyakov, A.Y. Romanchuk, O.O. Kapitanova, A.S. Mankevich, V.A. Lebedev, A.A. Eliseev, Origin of Long-Range Orientational Pore Ordering in Anodic Films on Aluminium // Journal of Materials Chemistry, 22 (2012) 11922−11926.
[2] I.V. Roslyakov, D.S. Koshkodaev, A.A. Eliseev, D. Hermida-Merino, V.K. Ivanov, A.V. Petukhov, K.S. Napolskii, Growth of Porous Anodic Alumina on Low-Index Surfaces of Al Single Crystals // Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 121 (2017) 27511−27520. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.7b09998.
[3] D.I. Petukhov, K.S. Napolskii, M.V. Berekchiyan, A.G. Lebedev, A.A. Eliseev, Comparative Study of Structure and Permeability of Porous Oxide Films on Aluminum Obtained by Single- and Two-Step Anodization // ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 5 (2013) 7819−7824.
[4] A.A. Noyan, A.P. Leontiev, M.V. Yakovlev, I.V. Roslyakov, G.A. Tsirlina, K.S. Napolskii, Electrochemical Growth of Nanowires in Anodic Alumina Templates: The Role of Pore Branching // Electrochimica Acta, 226 (2017) 60−68.
[5] V. Dremov, V. Fedoseev, P. Fedorov, A. Grebenko, Simple and Reliable Method of Conductive SPM Probe Fabrication Using Carbon Nanotubes // ArXiv:1406.5117v2.
[6] K.S. Napolskii, I.V. Roslyakov, A.A. Eliseev, A.V. Lukashin, V.A. Lebedev, D.M. Itkis, Yu.D. Tretyakov, Calibration gratings based on self-ordered porous alumina structures // Alternative energetics and ecology, 11(79) (2009) 86-89 (in Russian).