Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript proposes a symmetrically controlled design of twin alumina-Co composite thin films using a deflected electric field-assisted alternating current electrodeposition method. The theoretical calculations, as well as the numerical simulations, are reported to be consistent with the experimental findings. I have the following comments about the manuscript.

 

• In the experimental section, the authors should include a figure showing the complete experimental setup (a picture showing the experiment) as well as its detailed working. Fig. 1 only provides the schematic diagram of the electrodes electrolyzer and nothing else.
• In the experiment, for the electrode, why a 0.12 mol/L CoSO₄ solution was used. I suggest that the authors cite some references to justify this.
• For the preparation of alumina-Co composite films, what is the rationale behind choosing different oxidation times, e.g 7, 7.5, 9 etc ?
• I suggest that the authors explain the phenomenon of interference that leads to different color changes in the composite film.
• Why the digital image in fig 4(c) is chosen for performing XRD pattern and measure energy spectrum.
• In Fig 8, the refection peaks are very broad and not narrow. What could be the possible reason?
• Which software was used for tracking of Co particles? Please mention the name of the software.
• Fig 10(c) should be explained in more detail. For example, why there are two curves for up and down and why they exhibit different particle number concentration for the same values of separated region, especially for 8 and 10.
• The English language needs to be improved. There are a lot of typos in the manuscript.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Reviewer 2 Report

Better providing some brief quantitative details as results in introduction

Please avoid block citation in introduction “[1–9].” And other example – please resume them at maximum 3 and describe more in details each one

Which is the actual challenge that the industry faces in order to trigger the need of this work ?

Therefore the literature review which you present should answer to these question other wise not sure why need this work

Line 121-122 are almost repeated in line 150…

Line 176-186 -is very interesting but probably it will be better to provide some higher magnification to see clearly these mechanisms  

Figure 10c requires a bigger font sizes for the axes

Overall the results are quite interesting but there are required a detailed interpretation against literature data  - it will make this work more valuable

The conclusion requires specific quantitative details to link to results otherwise now are too verbally

The references are adequate

Some interesting work to further consider :

Materials 2020, 13, 1342; doi:10.3390/ma13061342

https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5029659

https://doi.org/10.1039/C7RA02719B

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have addressed most of my questions in detail and as such the manuscript should be accepted. 

Reviewer 2 Report

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