Investigation of the super-long alumina nanowire array synthesized with a novel method

Alumina nanowire array standing on porous anodic alumina (PAA) membrane has been directly and efficiently synthesized in oxalic acid solution by one-step electrochemical anodic oxidation with changing anodic voltages. The morphology of the nanowires on PAA was observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The different patterns on the surface of the sample were synthesized due to the reaction time. The fine structure of the patterns has shown that the pattern is composed of the alumina nanowire array and the morphologies of the patterns can mainly be attributed to the differences in the length of the alumina nanowires. The method of selected area electron diffraction (SAED) for transmission electron microscopy (TEM) has shown that these nanowires are amorphous. An etching model was given to explain the formation mechanism of the amorphous alumina nanowires.