We study the Rayleigh instability of polystyrene (PS) thin films coated in the nanopores of anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) templates. After thermal annealing, the surface of the PS thin films undulates and the nanostructures transform from nanotubes to Rayleigh-instability-induced nanostructures (short nanorods with encapsulated air bubbles). With longer annealing times, the nanostructures further...

Luminescent polynorbornene (PNB)/quantum dot (CdSe@ZnS; QD) composite nanorods and nanotubes were successfully prepared using anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) membranes of various pore sizes as templates. To protect QDs with high quantum yield from quenching during the phosphoric acid treatment used to remove the AAO templates, chemically stable and optically clear norbornene-maleic anhydride copoly...

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) utilize high surface area metal oxide sintered particle networks to absorb molecular dyes and transport injected charge carriers. While this sintered particle architecture allows liquid electrolyte DSSCs to achieve efficiencies up to 11%, slow charge transport through the semiconductor network limits the amount of modification that can be made to the electroly...

This paper describes the preparation of nanoarrays composed of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs: 20-50 nm) for use as surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates. The AgNPs were grown on porous anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) templates by electrochemical plating, and the inter-channel gap of AAO channels is between 10 and 20 nm. The size and interparticle gap of silver particles were adjusted in...

The formation of low surface energy hybrid organic-inorganic micro-nanostructured zinc stearate electrodeposit transformed the anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) surface to superhydrophobic, having a water contact angle of 160 ̋. The corrosion current densities of the anodized and aluminum alloy surfaces are found to be 200 and 400 nA/cm2, respectively. In comparison, superhydrophobic anodic aluminum o...

Electrochemical current and potential transients were measured during anodic oxidation of aluminum, on time scales of 0.1–100 ms after anodizing began. Aluminum foil samples were prepared by surface treatments yielding oxide films of thickness 5 nm or smaller. A mathematical model was developed for the transients based on steady-state and transient conduction phenomena established for much thic...

This paper presents the development of low cost Nano membrane fabrication system. The system is specially designed for anodic aluminum oxide membrane. This system is capable to perform the processes such as anodization and electro-polishing. The designed machine was successfully tested for ‘mild anodization’ (MA) for 48 hours and ‘hard anodization’ (HA) for 3 hours at constant 0C. The system is...

A new material for microchannel plates (MCP) is proposed — anodic aluminum oxide. Microchannel plates made of this material may be much cheaper than with conventional lead glass MCP. Also a significantly smaller channel diameter (up to 70 nm) is easily achievable, which means better spatial resolution and the possibility to operate in strong magnetic fields. Methods and means are developed for ...