Small-diameter magnetic and metallic nanowire arrays grown in anodic porous alumina templates anodized in selenic acid

Abstract

Despite the introduction of selenic acid for anodic porous alumina (APA) preparation with small nanopore diameters (< 20 nm), no attempt has been made to use it in the fabrication of small-diameter magnetic and metallic nanowire arrays. In this paper, considering the high cost of selenic acid, it has been attempted to initially use oxalic acid in preparation of an ordered pattern in the first anodization step and then employ selenic acid for the second anodization step by matching the appropriate voltage. By investigating the nanopore formation pattern in both acids, it was shown that the nanopores formed in the selenic acid had considerably smaller diameter (13 nm) than that of oxalic acid (35 nm). Under optimized conditions of electrodeposition, various metals were then grown in the selenic APA templates in order to fabricate nanowires with small diameters. The pore-filling percentage and crystalline properties were also investigated.