Self-assembling three-dimensional colloidal photonic crystal multilayers from aqueous ethanol mixture solutions

Vertical deposition technique to fabricate thin film solid artificial opals is becoming widely used. In the present work, we report our research on solvent modification and its effect on the quality of colloidal crystals. We used aqueous ethanol mixture solution to replace the ethanol solution and used the vertical deposition technique to pack the spherical colloids into close-packed arrays. High quality samples can be prepared with thickness up to 20μm in one step. Furthermore, large spheres (diameters greater than 500nm) were successfully crystallized. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and optical methods were used to measure sample thickness and uniformity. The number of layers was calculated from the spectral separation of the Fabry–Perot fringes.