Fabrication of Nanostructured Thin Films using Porous Alumina Templates

We demonstrate a method for fabricating a variety of nanostructured metallic thin films by using one simple approach based on the use of anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) membrane as masking template. Highly-ordered large-area metallic nanoporeor nanotip-arrays (e.g., Ni, Ag, Au), with various sizes and shapes, were deposited onto AAO membranes through e-beam evaporation. Free standing nano-patterned metallic films were obtained after chemically removing the template and characterized using scanning electron microscopy and electrochemical methods. The nanostructured films will find use in a number of applications, such as plasmonics, electrochemical and biomedical analysis, and catalysis.