  Drawing inspiration from nature, where some organisms can control the short
range order of amorphous minerals, we successfully manipulated the short range
order of amorphous alumina by surface and size effects. By utilizing the Atomic
Layer Deposition (ALD) method to grow amorphous nanometrically thin films,
combined with state-of-the-art electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) and
X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), we showed experimentally that the short
range order in such films is strongly influenced by size. This phenomenon is
equivalent to the well-known size effect on lattice parameters and on the
relative stability of different polymorphs in crystalline materials. We also
show that the short range order changes while still in the amorphous phase,
before the amorphous to crystalline transformation takes place.
