Multilevel self-organization on anodized aluminium: discovering hierarchical honeycomb structures from nanometre to sub-millimetre scale

Herein, the one-step spontaneous formation of multiscale hierarchical honeycomb-like textures on anodized aluminium is reported for the first time. A self-organized array of unprecedentedly large sub-millimetre hemispherical pores was observed on the upper hierarchy level, while superimposed well-or...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical chemistry chemical physics : PCCP 2020-07, Vol.22 (28), p.15867-15875
Main Author: Pashchanka, Mikhail
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aluminum oxide
Anodizing
Hexagonal cells
Honeycomb structures
Mathematical analysis
Morphology
Parameters
Periodic variations
Structural hierarchy
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Summary:Herein, the one-step spontaneous formation of multiscale hierarchical honeycomb-like textures on anodized aluminium is reported for the first time. A self-organized array of unprecedentedly large sub-millimetre hemispherical pores was observed on the upper hierarchy level, while superimposed well-ordered hexagonal cells on the lower hierarchy level maintained their classically known nanoscale self-ordering periodicity (50-60 nm). The larger macroscopic cells (0.45-0.90 mm) show great morphological similarity to the conventional nanosized porous anodic structures, but arise on a purely metallic surface without any analytically detectable amount of deposited alumina. The observed cell size expansion (approximately by a factor of 10 4 ) during Al anodizing is colossal in comparison with the size variation ranges reported in the literature so far. It reveals a dramatic nonlinearity effect in a dynamic self-organizing system upon a moderate change of experimental parameters (specifically, this work focuses on the effect of anodizing temperature). Such multilevel self-organization in a single aluminium anodizing process sheds new light on the origin of self-ordered anodic structures and allows rethinking the whole range of opinions regarding their formation mechanism that have been proposed to date. Novel hierarchical honeycomb-like structures on anodized aluminium with unprecedented scalability of pores from nanometre to sub-millimetre range open up new frontiers of multiscale spatial self-organization in electrochemistry.
ISSN:1463-9076
1463-9084
DOI:10.1039/d0cp01717e