Transparent Colloidal Crystals With Structural Colours
Authors
Erdem, T
O’Neill, T
Zupkauskas, M
Caciagli, A
Xu, P
Lan, Y
Bösecke, P
Eiser, E
Publication Date
2022Journal Title
Frontiers in Physics
ISSN
2296-424X
Publisher
Frontiers Media SA
Volume
10
Language
en
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Erdem, T., O’Neill, T., Zupkauskas, M., Caciagli, A., Xu, P., Lan, Y., Bösecke, P., & et al. (2022). Transparent Colloidal Crystals With Structural Colours. Frontiers in Physics, 10 https://doi.org/10.3389/fphy.2022.847142
Abstract
<jats:p>Spatially ordered arrangements of spherical colloids are known to exhibit structural colours. The intensity and brilliance of these structural colours typically improve with colloidal monodispersity, low concentrations of point and line defects and with increasing refractive index contrast between the colloids and the embedding medium. Here we show that suspensions of charge stabilised, fluorinated latex particles with low refractive-index contrast to their aqueous background form Wigner crystals with FCC symmetry for volume fractions between 13 and 40%. In reflection they exhibit both strong, almost angle-independent structural colours and sharp, more brilliant Bragg peaks despite the particle polydispersity and bimodal distribution. Simultaneously, these suspensions appear transparent in transmission. Furthermore, binary AB, A<jats:sub>2</jats:sub>B and A<jats:sub>13</jats:sub>B type mixtures of these fluorinated and similarly sized polystyrene particles appeared predominantly white but with clear Bragg peaks indicating a CsCl-like BCC structure and more complex crystals. We characterised the suspensions using a combination of reflectivity measurements and small-angle x-ray scattering, complemented by reflectivity modelling.</jats:p>
Keywords
Physics, colloid, structural color, SAXS (small-angle X-ray scattering), latex particle, photonic crystals
Identifiers
847142
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fphy.2022.847142
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/335249
Rights
Licence:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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