Tuning nanoporous anodic alumina distributed-Bragg reflectors with the number of anodization cycles and the anodization temperature

The influence of the anodization temperature and of the number of applied voltage cycles on the photonic properties of nanoporous anodic alumina-based distributed-Bragg reflectors obtained by cyclic voltage anodization is analyzed. Furthermore, the possibility of tuning the stop band central wavelength with a pore-widening treatment after anodization and its combined effect with temperature has been studied by means of scanning electron microscopy and spectroscopic transmittance measurements. The spectra for samples measured right after anodization show irregular stop bands, which become better defined with the pore widening process. The results show that with 50 applied voltage cycles, stop bands are obtained and that increasing the number of cycles contributes to enhancing the photonic stop bands (specially for the case of the as-produced samples) but at the expense of increased scattering losses. The anodization temperature is a crucial factor in the tuning of the photonic stop bands, with a linear rate of 42 nm/°C. The pore widening permits further tuning to reach stop bands with central wavelengths as low as 500 nm. Furthermore, the results also show that applying different anodization temperatures does not have a great influence in the pore-widening rate or in the photonic stop band width.