ABSTRACT
As a well-known host, highly ordered anodic alumina membranes (AAMs) have been playing an important role in the fabrication of many kinds of nanowires (Lei et al., 2001) and nanotubes (Hulteen and Martin, 1998). However, the AAMs have some disadvantages in actual use such as the insufficient chemical and thermal stability, together with the low mechanical strength. Moreover, the AAM itself is an insulator. Therefore, it is worth studying how to fabricate highly ordered metal (Masuda and Fukuda, 1995) or semiconductor membranes (Hoyer et al., 1995) with attractive chemical and physical properties.
