Abstract: Quasiordered, stripelike, nanometerscale structures were spontaneously created on surfaces of highpurity(99.999％) aluminum by electropolishing. Observed under atomic force microscopy(AFM), the average width of single stripe and the distance between two neighboring stripes are about 40～50 nm,respectively, and the average height of the stripes is 1.5～5.0 nm. The highly ordered stripelike nanostructures can be obtained only within a narrow range of processing parameters. The stripe deficiencies, such as stripecross and stripeconvergence, within parallel stripes, can be seen on surface defects, which do not fundamentally affect the orientation of the stripes. The stripe structures are stable in atmosphere at room temperature. When samples with stripe structures were anodized to form porous alumina, the stripe structures vanished. A physical scenario was proposed to explain the growth mechanisms of the quasiordered stripelike structures.

Key words: Aluminum surfaces, Electropolishing, Stripe structures, Quasiordered, 　Anodization