A statistical approach for the characterization of self-assembled hexagonal lattices

Different anodization conditions create different lattices of aluminum oxides. Some lattice characterization techniques have been proposed in the literature to quantify the effects of these conditions. In this paper, a statistical method for evaluating the degree of ordering in the hexagonal nano-porous anodized aluminum oxide (AAO) lattices has been proposed. A robust preprocessing technique is used to eliminate the irregularity of the background of the SEM image of these structures. Then the maximum variance of the summation of the intensity value of two directions of the image in different orientations is used to determine the degree of ordering. The mentioned variance signal also shows the dominant and other orientations of the nano pores in an AAO image. One new criterion is also introduced which could exactly characterize the whole lattice.