Orderly aligned manganese-based nanotube arrays with controllable secondary structures

By combining a hard template with a dynamic negative template, orderly aligned micrometer-length manganese nanotubes (Mn-NTs) decorated with nanopores on their walls as the secondary structure are successfully grown by electrodeposition in aqueous solution. These nanopores were characterized and analyzed statistically. It is found that these nanopores evolve along the growth direction of the Mn-NTs and their morphology is well controlled by the deposition potential. In addition, the morphology evolution of the nanopores exhibits distinguished size distribution compared with that found in conventional nanoporous foam grown solely by the dynamic template approach, which is attributed to the nanoconfinement of the hard template.