Anodic Aluminum Oxide Templates for Nickel Nanowires Array Fabrication

This paper reports on the process developed to fabricate anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) templates suitable for the fabrication of nanowires arrays. Anodization process has been used to fabricate the AAO templates with pore diameters ranging from 15 nm to 30 nm. Electrodeposition of parallel arrays of high aspect ratio nickel nanowires were demonstrated using these fabricated AAO templates. The nanowires produced were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). It was found that the orientations of the electrodeposited nickel nanowires were governed by the deposition current and electrolyte conditions.