Anodic aluminium oxide templates for synthesis and study of thermal behaviour of metallic nanowires

Metallic nanowires are used as functional components of electronic devices in the form of arrays or are incorporated into nano-composites or complex architectures with valuable properties. All three cases can be implemented on the basis of spatially ordered matrices of anodic aluminium oxide. However, as is known, the behaviour of particles enclosed in the pores of a matrix may differ from that of particles in a free state because of the influence of the interphase boundary 'matrix - particle'. In this work, we investigate the role of the matrix in the study of the properties of metal nanowires in the matrix of anodic aluminium oxide. A significant part of the article is devoted to an overview of the methodological aspects of the characterization of their morphology, geometrical parameters and thermal behaviour. Using the example of the alumna matrix with artificially given geometrical parameters, it is shown that the temperature characteristics of phase transitions observed by differential scanning calorimetry strongly depend on the distribution of nanowires in the alumna matrix according to their size, which requires detailed processing of the data obtained for the correct definition of the corresponding temperatures of phase transitions. Copyright (C) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.