Issue 99, 2018

Separation-cooperated assembly of liquid photonic crystals from polydisperse particles

Abstract

Easy and cost-effective production of high-quality photonic crystals (PCs) remains challenging but attractive, not just because they are a type of gemstone but more for their scientific applications (e.g., serving as lossless waveguides, visual sensors, novel pigments and novel separation media). Herein presented is a separation-cooperated assembly (SCA) strategy able to organize cheap polydisperse particles into PCs. Its feasibility was validated through sink-induced SCA of poorly disperse (size variation up to 56%) particles into iridescent liquid PCs in 3 days or more. Strikingly, with a sharp photonic band gap down to 10 nm (ca. 1/7 of the reported 66 nm), the liquid PCs are able to cyclically recover their iridescent color in ca 20 s after agitation, and keep their structural order after dryness, making them practicable to write and paint directly. Also significant is that SCA yielded uniform particles with size variation down to 0.7%. It is thus an easy way to isolate homogeneous particles from disperse ones.

Graphical abstract: Separation-cooperated assembly of liquid photonic crystals from polydisperse particles

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Communication
Submitted
09 Aug 2018
Accepted
21 Oct 2018
First published
22 Oct 2018

Chem. Commun., 2018,54, 13937-13940

Separation-cooperated assembly of liquid photonic crystals from polydisperse particles

Y. Chen, C. Zhang, Q. Zheng and Y. Chen, Chem. Commun., 2018, 54, 13937 DOI: 10.1039/C8CC06499G

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