Porous anodic aluminum oxide

Abstract

Porous anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) is one of the typical self-organized fine structures with cylindrical pores of uniform diameter arranged in a hexagonal array. AAO has been commonly used as a template for synthesis of nanostructures with a variety of materials. In this chapter, we first describe the preparation of AAO templates with various pore structures, such as straight, branched, and step-shaped pores. Then, we focus on the use of AAO with different pore structures as templates for construction of nanostructures with various architectures, including one-dimensional (1-D) nanostructures and nanoheterostructures with linear and complex shapes.