Self-Ordered Aluminum Anodizing in Phosphonoacetic Acid and Its Structural Coloration

Ordered anodic porous alumina with large-scale periodicity was fabricated via phosphonoacetic acid anodizing. Aluminum specimens were anodized in a 0.1–0.9 M phosphonoacetic acid solution under various electrochemical operating conditions, and optimum anodizing at 205–225 V exhibited self-ordering growth of the porous alumina. These self-ordering voltages during phosphonoacetic acid anodizing filled an undiscovered vacant region in the linear relationship between the self-ordering voltage and the cell diameter. The nanostructured aluminum surface formed via self-ordering phosphonoacetic acid anodizing produced a bright structural coloration with a visible light wavelength of 500–700 nm, which is useful for optical nanoapplications. © The Author(s) 2015. Published by ECS. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 License (CC BY-NC-ND, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is not changed in any way and is properly cited. For permission for commercial reuse, please email: oa@electrochem.org. [DOI: 10.1149/2.0021508ssl] All rights reserved.