A pretreatment of micro grooving was applied before the MAO process on the surface of aluminum. The influence of micro grooves on oxide ceramic coating was characterized by XRD, SEM, EDS and micro hardness tester. The experiment shows that the micro groove could significantly increase the partial growth rate (from 0.66 to 1.0 mu m min(-1)) and hardness of oxide ceramic coating; the parameter of current and process time have a big influence on coating thickness and smoothness; the micro groove can be completely filled with the products of ejection under the appropriate process parameter and continuous smooth with the coating out of the grooves. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.