Aluminium oxide film for 2D photonic structure: room temperature formation

We report about aluminium anodic oxide films (AOFs) as self-organising microstructures for photonic band gap (PBG) crystal application. Structural analysis show that aluminium anodic oxide has formed a structure of randomly oriented clusters each of them consisting of neatly ordered submicrometer cells. Measurements show that at room temperature pores of up to 460 nm wide can be formed, thus, opening a PBG in the visible. Doping of aluminium AOFs by Ag and CdS, is demonstrated.