AVS 49th International Symposium
    Nanometer Structures Wednesday Sessions
       Session NS-WeM

Paper NS-WeM8
Patterned Anodization on Aluminum Surfaces

Wednesday, November 6, 2002, 10:40 am, Room C-207

Session: Nanostructured Materials
Presenter: J. Yan, The University of New Mexico
Authors: J. Yan, The University of New Mexico
V. Goparaju, The University of New Mexico
P. Atanasov, The University of New Mexico
G. López, The University of New Mexico
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Nanoporous aluminum oxide (AAO), highly ordered arrays of uniform and straight pores with tunable features, can be formed through anodization of aluminum in an acid solution. Through-hole AAO membranes have recently been explored as an alternative to conventional lithographic techniques to achieve high resolution, to fabricate fine patterns over a large area, and to minimize costs. The inherent fragility of AAO membranes, however, limits their integration into established microfabrication process. To address this issue, we pre-patterned bulk aluminum sheets and vacuum-evaporated thin aluminum films on glass with silica through a sol-gel process or chemical vapor deposition. After a two-step anodization, we observed highly ordered, uniform and straight nanopores on uncovered areas, and no pores were observed for the covered areas after silica had been removed, thus providing intermittent aluminum supports to the fragile nanoporous AAO. This work allows facile incorporation of AAO in a robust form into microdevices for microelectronics, microfluidics and integrated optics.