Size-Tunable Porous Anodic Alumina Nano-Structure for Biosensing
- 1 Electrical Engineering Division, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, J J Thomson Avenue, Cambridge, CB3 0FA, UK
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Abstract
A porous anodic alumina (PAA) film has been investigated to realise highly-ordered nano-porous structures. A two-step anodization process is used to anodize aluminium into size-controllable aluminium oxide. In this paper, we investigate how anodization parameters affect nano-porous structures, such as voltage and time of pretreatment, anodization voltage and time, pore widening time. The results showed pretreatment is important to obtain a smooth surface for anodizing. The pore size is controllable between 30 and 80 nm, with a linear fit curve. The interpore size is constant at around 95 nm, and the pore densities are between 10<sup>10</sup> and 10<sup>11</sup> cm<sup>–2</sup>. The formation of straight vertical walls is crucial if the PAA film is to be subsequently used as the template for the growth of metal nanowire arrays.
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