Optical Properties of the Self-Assembling Polymeric Colloidal Systems

Abstract

In the last decade, optical materials have gained much interest due to the high number of possible applications involving path or intensity control and filtering of light. The continuous emerging technology in the field of electrooptical devices or medical applications allowed the development of new innovative cost effective processes to obtain optical materials suited for future applications such as hybrid/polymeric solar cells, lasers, polymeric optical fibers, and chemo- and biosensing devices. Considering the above, the aim of this review is to present recent studies in the field of photonic crystals involving the use of polymeric materials.

Synthesis of Poly(styrene-acrylates-acrylic acid) Microspheres and Their Chemical Composition towards Colloidal Crystal Films

“…shows only one ); the refractive index contrast [25][26][27][28][29] (e.g., type and ratio of comonomer in the microsphere and the air); defects in films caused during self-assembly; cracks and vacancies [28], and so forth. To achieve a better understanding of these results, the positions of the reflection peak of photonic films reported by other working groups were analyzed (see Table 4).…”

Disorder explains dual‐band reflection spectrum in spherical colloidal photonic supraparticle assemblies

“…During the last decade, bottom-up nanofabrication techniques based on self-assembly of nano-and microscopic constituents from colloidal dielectric nanoparticles to micro-and mesoscopic hierarchical large-area patterns and three-dimensional superstructures have become an interesting field of research both in fundamental and technical sciences. [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] Application examples comprise PC microarrays [14][15][16][17][18] aiming for, most visionary early on, all-optical computers [19] or, more practical, for attenuators, waveguides [20] and interconnects for narrow-band optical signals, [21] as tools for optical barcoding, [7] as security elements, [22] as lightconfining elements in photovoltaic cells, [23,24] or as components for refractive-index tuning. [25] Recent developments are devoted to thermally or environmentally responding displays, [26,27] pH sensors [28] and chemical sensors for reaction kinetics.…”

“…[25] Recent developments are devoted to thermally or environmentally responding displays, [26,27] pH sensors [28] and chemical sensors for reaction kinetics. [29] Wide-spread optical phenomena in nature are structural colors from bulk materials, [10,11] areal PC micropatterns [7,[30][31][32] and smallsize [8,13] down to magic-number [12] colloidal clusters. In structural colors, the origin of the color impression is mostly nanostructured bulk material rather than colloidal material.…”

Simultaneous occurrence and compensating effects of multi‐type disorder in two‐dimensional photonic structures

“…Micro‐ and nanostructured dielectric thin films and interfaces have found their role in optics and photonics, serving mainly as passive elements (scatterers, diffusers, waveguides) for a wide range of existing or prospective applications. [ 1 ] Scenarios comprise, for example, bio‐inspired [ 2–5 ] or artificial [ 6,7 ] wide‐range structural colorants of surfaces in consumer products and architectural design, areal photonic‐crystal micropatterns, [ 2,8 ] distributed small‐size [ 9,10 ] down to magic‐number [ 11 ] colloidal clusters, polymer‐silica hybrids (e.g., 'origami glass', Ref. [12]) or two‐phase inorganic nanocomposites [ 13 ] with variable degree of order.…”