Growth of copper-indium nanorods on Si substrate using porous anodic alumina as template

Abstract

Copper-indium nanorod arrays have been synthesized by electrodeposition using porous anodic alumina nano template supported on a silicon substrate. Porous anodic alumina template was fabricated by evaporating aluminium film onto silicon substrate and then anodizing the aluminium film in diluted phosphoric acid. The approach employs a plasma etching to penetrate the alumina pore barrier layer before electrodeposition, which enables direct electrical and chemical contact with the silicon substrate electrode. The resulting template and copper-indium nonorods obtained were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy-dispersived X-ray spectroscopic analyzer (EDS), the pores of alumina are found to have dimensions of 150-250 nm pore diameters and 330-510 nm pore spacings, partial filling of the pores of the alumina template by Cu-In is achieved. The results of this work reveal that the alumina nano template is particularly well suited to the etching mask and template-assisted growth of nanostructures to be integrated into rigid substrate. © 2009 IOP Publishing Ltd.