聚苯乙烯光子晶体的制备及其在传感中的应用

以基于毛细作用的垂直沉积法将单分散的二氧化硅胶体微球自组装成光子晶体．在二氧化硅光子晶体的多孔结构里填充聚苯乙烯甲苯溶液,经甲苯挥发,通过氢氟酸处理去除二氧化硅模板,制备出精美的聚苯乙烯光子晶体．研究表明：保留了模板有序多孔结构的聚苯乙烯能被用来作为敏感膜,这使得其在基于折射率变化的传感应用中具有潜在的价值．     

SiO2胶体晶体垂直沉积自组装方法的改进

采用垂直沉积技术及相应的改进方法,使用化学合成的400 nm单分散二氧化硅微球自组装制备了胶体晶体薄膜。通过扫描电镜与分光光度计对样品的微观结构与透过光谱进行了表征,并对比研究了不同的垂直沉积方法对胶体晶体的影响。结果表明,通过温度与流量控制两种改进手段,均能制备具有六方密堆结构周期排列的胶体晶体薄膜。在垂直沉积过程中适当的升高温度有利于降低胶体粒子的用量,而通过流量控制的垂直沉积技术则可以有效缩短自组装时间。通过调节蠕动泵改变液面与基板的相对运动速度,或者调控温度改变胶体溶液的蒸发速率,可在材料表面形成单层或多层的胶体晶体薄膜。改进的垂直沉积技术将有望应用于快速沉积大面积、高质量的胶体晶体材料。     

垂直排列法组装胶体晶体的最新进展

光子晶体是一种具有光子带隙的新型功能材料.利用胶体粒子自组装三维光子晶体由于其制备过程比较经济、简单,从而为很多人所关注.目前报道的方法已有多种.其中垂直排列法的简便易行使得其受到了广泛的研究,但另一方面这种方法本身的缺点也限制了它的使用范围.针对这种情况,很多研究机构提出了他们的改进方法.本文简要概述了在这一方面的最新进展,并且在本实验室已能够制备任意单分散、均一尺寸二氧化硅粒子的基础上,采用恒温快速蒸发自组装法得到了高质量的胶体晶体排列.     

Opal and inverse opal photonic crystals: Fabrication and characterization

Three-dimensional photonic crystals made of close-packed polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) spheres or air spheres in silica, titania and ceria matrices have been fabricated and characterized using SEM, XRD, Raman spectroscopy and UV–Vis transmittance measurements. The PMMA colloidal crystals (opals) were grown by self-assembly from aqueous suspensions of monodisperse PMMA spheres with diameters between 280 and 415 nm. SEM confirmed the PMMA spheres crystallized uniformly in a face-centred cubic (fcc) array, and UV–Vis measurements show that the colloidal crystals possess pseudo photonic band gaps in the visible and near-IR regions. Inverse opals were prepared by depositing silica (SiO₂), titania (TiO₂) or ceria (CeO₂) in the voids of the PMMA colloidal crystals using sol-gel procedures, then calcining the resulting structure at 550 °C to remove the polymer template. The resulting macroporous materials showed fcc ordering of air spheres separated by thin frameworks of amorphous silica, nanocrystalline titania or nanocrystalline ceria particles, respectively. Optical measurements confirmed the photonic nature of the inverse opal arrays. UV–Vis data collected for the opals and inverse opals obeyed a modified Bragg’s law expression that considers both diffraction and refraction of light by the photonic crystal architectures. The versatility of the colloidal crystal template approach for the fabrication of macroporous oxide structures is demonstrated.     

Layer transfer approach to opaline hetero photonic crystals

By taking advantage of the hydrophobicity of dry polystyrene colloidal crystal (opal) films and the large surface tension of water, a convectively self-assembled polystyrene opal film on a hydrophilic glass substrate can be peeled off from the substrate and floated on the water surface. A layer transfer technique was developed to sequentially stack floating opal films of different sphere sizes, resulting in opaline hetero photonic crystals. The feasibility of this technique to planar defect engineering in a self-assembled colloidal photonic crystal was also demonstrated. Both structural observation and optical characterization confirmed the crystalline integrity of the resultant opaline heterostructures.     

胶体光子晶体的平面介电常数缺陷

为引入特殊的光学性质,通常需要在三维光子晶体中人为可控地引入缺陷.通过改变局部结构单元的尺寸或介电常数,相应地引入给体或受体掺杂,带来不同的缺陷态.以前文献报道的向胶体光子晶体中引入缺陷,常会因为同时引入尺寸和介电常数掺杂,给掺杂性质的界定带来困难.本文中,我们结合对流自组装法和L-B膜法,在实心二氧化硅微球组成的三维光子晶体内引入尺寸相同的二氧化硅空心球(与实心球相比具有不同折光率)组成的单层平面缺陷,或者在空心球晶体内引入实心球缺陷层,构成实心-空心-实心或空心-实心-空心的三明治结构,在不破坏整体晶格的同时,在三维胶体光子晶体中引入单一的平面介电常数缺陷.     

金属Al薄膜基微池强制沉积胶体光子晶体的制备

强制沉积法是一种利用自组装原理快速沉积胶体晶体有序阵列的模板方法. 我们利用微机械刻划法加工金属Al薄膜, Al膜厚控制微粒粒径和聚醚砜膜厚控制层数, 成功地制备了用于强制沉积光子晶体的微池装置. 为了检验该微池装置的有效性, 我们分别测试了不同粒径(224, 245和283 nm)单分散聚苯乙烯微球的沉积效果, 并且对其中一种微球(283 nm)进行了不同温度的烘干处理, 检验了烘干温度对该样品表面形貌和光子带隙中心波长的影响. 实验结果表明, 该光子晶体呈面心立方结构, 内部晶格完整, 缺陷较少, 带隙中心波长的实验值与计算值符合得较好. 此外, 烘干处理可以使构成光子晶体的微球发生微观变化, 并导致光子带隙中心波长的蓝移.     

Facile fabrication of mechanochromic-responsive colloidal crystal films

This paper presents a simple approach to fabricate a reversible mechanochromic-responsive crystal film based on the room-temperature film-formation of monodisperse polymer latex by the aid of nanosilica particles. In this approach, when the "soft" colloidal polymer spheres were blended with colloidal silica particles and then cast on a substrate, followed by drying at room temperature for self-assembly, an elastic crystal film was directly obtained. This crystal film has not only reversible and repeatable mechanochromic-responsive property, but also tunable color and peak position covering almost entire visible spectral region, depending upon the sizes of polymer spheres and strains. This optical response is attributed to the variation of lattice spacing during deformation.     

High-speed fabrication of patterned colloidal photonic structures in centrifugal microfluidic chips

In this paper, we report a rapid and facile method for fabricating colloidal photonic crystals inside microchannels of radially symmetric microfluidic chips which were made using soft-lithography. As the suspension of monodisperse silica or polystyrene latex spheres was driven to flow through the channels under the action of centrifugal force, the colloidal spheres were quickly assembled into face centered cubic arrangement which had a few photonic stop bands. The soft-microfluidic channels and cells confined the colloidal crystals into designed patterns. The optical reflectance was modulated by the refractive-index mismatch between the colloidal particles and the solvent in the interstices between the particles. Therefore, the present microfluidic chips with built-in colloidal photonic crystals can be used as in-situ optofluidic microsensors for high throughput screening or light filters in integrated adaptive optical devices.     

Colloidal crystals formed by aqueous suspensions of monodispersed silica, polystyrene, and poly(methyl methacrylate) colloidal spheres

Colloidal crystals consisted of silica, polystyrene, and poly(methyl methacrylate) monodispersed suspensions; deionized sufficiently in water at the same condition; were formed; and their properties were compared changing sphere diameter and volume fraction systematically. The size of these colloidal crystals was maximized at their critical sphere concentration irrespective of their sphere size. The Bragg peak wavelengths of these colloidal crystals were uniquely determined only by the sphere diameter and volume fraction for all kinds of colloidal spheres used in this work. The larger the sphere volume fraction, the larger the crystal growth rates, and there were no significant differences among the colloidal spheres. The rigidity of colloidal crystals increased in proportion to the number density of spheres. Consequently, the crystallization mechanism and properties of colloidal crystals formed by these spheres are not dependent on the kind of spheres, but they are dependent only on the sphere diameter and number density.     

Fabrication of spherical colloidal crystals using electrospray

We demonstrated the use of electrohydrodynamic atomization to prepare uniform-sized emulsion droplets in which equal spheres of silica or polystyrene were dispersed. The size of the emulsion droplets was easily controlled by the electric field strength and the flow rate, independently of the diameter of the nozzles. During the evaporation of solvent in the droplets, spherical colloidal crystals were formed by self-assembly of the monodisperse colloidal spheres. The diameter of the spherical colloidal crystals was in the range of 10-40 microm. Depending on the stability of colloidal particles, the morphology of the self-assembled structure was varied. In particular, silica spheres in ethanol droplets were self-assembled into compactly packed silica colloidal crystals in spherical shapes, whereas polystyrene latex spheres in toluene droplets self-assembled into spherical colloidal crystal shells with hollow cores. The silica colloidal assemblies reflected diffraction colors according to the three-dimensionally ordered arrangement of silica spheres.     

Process optimization of sol–gel derived colloidal photonic crystals

Three-dimensional photonic bandgap structures have been synthesized by a colloidal/sol–gel route, starting with the self-organization of polystyrene microspheres into opals by dip-coating, sedimentation or vertical convective self-assembly, followed by sol–gel infiltration of the interstices with silica, titania or a silica-titania mixture, by dip-coating and removal of the polymeric template. The structural and optical properties of the opals and inverse opals prepared by this method have been studied by scanning electron microscopy and visible infra-red spectroscopies to assess the relationship between their structure and the photonic properties obtained. The optical transmission and reflection spectra of the opal and inverse opal structures have also been simulated by the Translight Software code, using the Transfer Matrix method, for different numbers of stacked layers, showing reasonable agreement with the experimental results. By optimizing the fabrication parameters, colloidal photonic crystals of good quality have been obtained, with reduced defect concentrations and increased mechanical strength.     

梯度结构胶体光子晶体的制备及光子禁带调节

以改进的对流自组装方法制备层数可控的胶体光子晶体, 并通过各向同性氧等离子体(O₂ Plasma)刻蚀构造出梯度结构, 进一步通过金(Au)及无定形硅(Si)的可控沉积调节梯度结构胶体光子晶体的光子禁带, 并将该梯度结构用于罗丹明B的荧光发射增强.     

Inverse opal photonic crystal of chalcogenide glass by solution processing

Chalcogenide opal and inverse opal photonic crystals were successfully fabricated by low-cost and low-temperature solution-based process, which is well developed in polymer films processing. Highly ordered silica colloidal crystal films were successfully infilled with nano-colloidal solution of the high refractive index As(30)S(70) chalcogenide glass by using spin-coating method. The silica/As-S opal film was etched in HF acid to dissolve the silica opal template and fabricate the inverse opal As-S photonic crystal. Both, the infilled silica/As-S opal film (Δn ~ 0.84 near λ=770 nm) and the inverse opal As-S photonic structure (Δn ~ 1.26 near λ=660 nm) had significantly enhanced reflectivity values and wider photonic bandgaps in comparison with the silica opal film template (Δn ~ 0.434 near λ=600 nm). The key aspects of opal film preparation by spin-coating of nano-colloidal chalcogenide glass solution are discussed. The solution fabricated "inorganic polymer" opal and the inverse opal structures exceed photonic properties of silica or any organic polymer opal film. The fabricated photonic structures are proposed for designing novel flexible colloidal crystal laser devices, photonic waveguides and chemical sensors.     

Direct-write fabrication of colloidal photonic crystal microarrays by ink-jet printing

An array of the colloidal photonic crystals was directly fabricated using an ink-jet printing. The colloidal ink droplets containing the monodispersed polystyrene latex particles were selectively deposited on a hydrophobic surface. Solvent evaporation from each ink droplet leads to a formation of microdome-shaped colloidal assembles of close-packed structures. Microspectroscopic analysis has confirmed that the individual assembly serves as a photonic crystal and its optical properties can be correlated with the microstructural features. Unlike other techniques of patterned growth of colloidal photonic crystal, the substrate does not need to be patterned first and no template is needed in the direct writing by the ink-jet printing. Using our strategy, we have rapidly produced the colloidal photonic crystal microarrays composed of different-sized spheres addressably patterned on the same substrate.     

Three-dimensional structure and defects in colloidal photonic crystals revealed by tomographic scanning transmission X-ray microscopy

Self-assembled colloidal crystals have attracted major attention because of their potential as low-cost three-dimensional (3D) photonic crystals. Although a high degree of perfection is crucial for the properties of these materials, little is known about their exact structure and internal defects. In this study, we use tomographic scanning transmission X-ray microscopy (STXM) to access the internal structure of self-assembled colloidal photonic crystals with high spatial resolution in three dimensions for the first time. The positions of individual particles of 236 nm in diameter are identified in three dimensions, and the local crystal structure is revealed. Through image analysis, structural defects, such as vacancies and stacking faults, are identified. Tomographic STXM is shown to be an attractive and complementary imaging tool for photonic materials and other strongly absorbing or scattering materials that cannot be characterized by either transmission or scanning electron microscopy or optical nanoscopy.     

Reversible control of light reflection of a colloidal crystal film fabricated from monodisperse mesoporous silica spheres

In this letter, we report a novel method for controlling the light reflection of a colloidal crystal. Highly monodisperse mesoporous silica spheres have been successfully organized into a hexagonally close-packed colloidal crystal film. Just by introducing water vapor into the fabricated colloidal film, the structural color and reflection spectra were changed dramatically because of water vapor adsorption occurring in the mesoporous channels. This phenomenon can be observed reversibly over five cycles. We are convinced that this is the first report on controlling the light reflection of a colloidal crystal film dynamically by taking advantage of adsorption properties inherent to mesoporous silica spheres.     

Growth of mesoporous materials within colloidal crystal films by spin-coating

A combination of colloidal crystal planarization, stabilization, and novel infiltration techniques is used to build a bimodal porous silica film showing order at both the micron and the nanometer length scale. An infiltration method based on the spin-coating of the mesophase precursor onto a three-dimensional polystyrene colloidal crystal film allows a nanometer control tuning of the filling fraction of the mesoporous phase while preserving the optical quality of the template. These materials combine a high specific surface arising from the nanopores with increased mass transport and photonic crystal properties provided by the order of the macropores. Optical Bragg diffraction from these type of hierarchically ordered oxides is observed, allowing performing of optical monitoring of the different processes involved in the formation of the bimodal silica structure.     

Colloidal crystals of core–shell-type spheres in deionized aqueous suspension

The structure, crystal growth kinetics and rigidity of colloidal crystals of core–shell-type latex spheres (diameters 280–330 nm) with differences in shell rigidity have been studied in aqueous suspension, mainly by reflection spectroscopy. The suspensions were deionized exhaustively for more than 2 years using mixed-bed ion-exchange resins. The five kinds of core–shell spheres examined form colloidal crystals, where the critical sphere concentrations, _c, of crystallization (or melting) are high and range from 0.01 to 0.06 in volume fraction. Nearest-neighbor intersphere distances in the crystal lattice agree satisfactorily with values calculated from the sphere diameter and concentration. The crystal growth rates are between 0.1 and 0.3 s^–1 and decrease slightly as the sphere concentration increases, indicating that the crystal growth rates are from the secondary process in the colloidal crystallization mechanism, corresponding to reorientation from metastable crystals formed in the primary process and/or Ostwald-ripening process. The rigidities of the crystals range from 2 to 200 Pa, and increase sharply as the sphere concentration increases. The g factor, the parameter for crystal stability, is around 0.02 irrespective of the sphere concentration and/or the kind of core–shell sphere. There are no distinct differences in the structural, kinetic and elastic properties among the colloidal crystals of the different core–shell-type spheres, showing that the internal sphere structure does not affect the properties of the colloidal crystals. The results show that colloidal crystals form in a closed container owing to long-range repulsive forces and the Brownian movement of colloidal spheres surrounded by extended electrical double layers and that their formation is not influenced by the rigidity and internal structure of the spheres.     

Drying dissipative patterns of the colloidal crystals of silica spheres in an dc-electric field

Drying dissipative structural patterns of the colloidal crystals of silica spheres were studied under an dc-electric field. Platinum plate electrodes of anode and cathode were set on a cover glass. The broad hills accumulated with the spheres were observed at the outer edges of the dried film without and also with the electric fields. The column-like structures were formed by the electric flux, and movement of the spheres took place toward anode. The dried film kept colloidal crystal structure, where the nearest-neighbored spheres contact each other more compactly in the areas closer to the anode. Drying times needed for the complete dryness of the suspensions decreased as the strength of the electric field increased. Addition of sodium chloride to the suspensions retarded the movement of spheres toward the anode substantially.