Heat treatment of aluminum in preparing porous anodic alumina templates

The influence of heat treatment on the final arrangement of nanopores in fabrication of ordered porous anodic alumina templates is investigated. The well-established two-step anodising procedure is applied to grow ordered porous anodic aluminum oxide (AAO). The surface condition of the specimens exposed to different heat-treatment processes including stress relieving, full annealing and over annealing processes, were compared with the untreated specimen. They were subsequently etched and the microstructure was examined by optical microscopy. The samples were then treated by the two-step anodising procedure and scanning electron microscopy was utilised to study the obtained AAOs. Consequently, linear-angular fast Fourier transformation technique was used to assess the nanopores ordering and ordered domains.