The role and effect of residual stress on pore generation during anodization of aluminium thin films

Abstract The role and effect of residual stress on pore generation of anodized aluminium oxide (AAO) have been investigated into anodizing the various-residual-stresses aluminium films. The plane stresses were characterised by X-ray diffraction with sin2ψ method. The pore density roughly linearly increased with residual stress from 64.6 (−132.5 MPa) to 90.5 pores/μm2 (135.9 MPa). However, the average pore size around 40 nm was not changed significantly except for the rougher film. The tensile residual stress lessened the compressive oxide growth stress to reduce AAO plastic deformation for higher pore density. The findings provide new foundations for realizing AAO films on silicon.