Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, National University of Singapore , 4 Engineering Drive 4, Singapore 117576.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2014 Jul 9;6(13):10265-73. doi: 10.1021/am501672e. Epub 2014 Jun 30.
Binary colloidal crystals (BCCs) possess great potentials in tuning material properties by controlling the size ratio of small to large colloidal spheres (γS/L). In this paper, we present a method for the fabrication of BCCs with much more extended size ratios than those obtained in conventional convective self-assembly method. It is found that γS/L can be extended to 0.376 by adding TEOS sol into the colloidal suspension. The resulting polystyrene/silica (PS/SiO2) BCCs show distinctive reflections, indicating their well-ordered structure. The extended size ratios render more flexibility in engineering the photonic bandgap structures of BCCs and hence provide a better platform for developing a range of applications such as photonics, spintronics, sensing and bioseparation.
二进制胶体晶体 (BCCs) 通过控制小至大胶体球的尺寸比 (γS/L) 具有很大的潜力来调节材料性能。在本文中，我们提出了一种制造 BCC 的方法，与传统的对流自组装方法相比，该方法可获得更大的尺寸比。研究发现，通过将 TEOS 溶胶添加到胶体悬浮液中，可以将 γS/L 扩展到 0.376。所得的聚苯乙烯/二氧化硅 (PS/SiO2) BCC 具有独特的反射，表明其具有有序的结构。扩展的尺寸比使得在工程 BCC 的光子带隙结构方面更加灵活，从而为开发一系列应用提供了更好的平台，如光子学、自旋电子学、传感和生物分离。
