Study on Infiltration Behavior of Metal Containing Solution into Porous AAO Template

摘要

Anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) templates have drawn much interest because they can be applicable to form carbon nanotubes, nanowires and nanorods. For the aim of nanowire fabrication, infiltration behaviors of metal containing solution into pores in AAO template were investigated. In this paper, nickel nitrate solution [Ni(NO3)(2)center dot 6H(2)O] was used as metal containing solution (marker solution). The infiltration behavior of marker solution into the pores (diameter: 30 nm) in AAO template was observed by scanning electron microscopy. The samples which had been processed by plasma treatment or pressure change showed a favorable influence on the infiltration properties of marker solution into the pores. Compared to plasma treatment, the pressure change in the chamber showed a little effect on infiltration behavior of marker solution. From this study, we conclude that the change in surface energy of the AAO surface is more effective than pressure change for the infiltration of marker solution into the holes in AAO template. The weak effect of pressure change on infiltration is due to large value of Knudsen number resulted from very small diameter of pores in the AAO template.