Search results for "Colloidal crystal"

Regular Horizontal Patterning on Colloidal Crystals Produced by Vertical Deposition

2009

Colloidal particles have proved to be a suitable precursor to the formation of nanoscaled materials. More explicitly, they are a suitable way to create photonic band gap materials in 3D. Several methods have been developed to assemble colloidal multilayer systems, and have yielded various levels of success. The vertical deposition method has shown itself to be one of the best in terms of time, control of the final product, crystal size and homogeneity. Despite this, the resulting crystals often present point defects, dislocations, cracks and polycrystallinity, as well as a horizontal modulation of film thickness. These defects compromise the possible utilities of the crystals. The study of …

Classical growth of hard-sphere colloidal crystals.

1995

The classical theory of nucleation and growth of crystals is examined for concentrated suspensions of hard-sphere colloidal particles. The work of Russel is modified, extended, and evaluated, explicitly. Specifically, the Wilson-Frenkel growth law is modified to include the Gibbs-Thomson effect and is evaluated numerically. The results demonstrate that there is a critical nucleus radius below which crystal nuclei will not grow. A kinetic coefficient determines the maximum growth velocity possible. For large values of this coefficient, quenches to densities above the melting density show interface limited growth with the crystal radius increasing linearly with time. For quenches into the coe…

Electrophoretic flow behaviour and mobility of colloidal fluids and crystals.

2007

We report on measurements of the electrophoretic mobility mu of charged colloidal spheres in the deionized state, where the suspensions show fluid or crystalline order. In the fluid state, parabolic flow profiles are observed due to electro-osmotic solvent flow. In the crystalline state, complex flow profiles occur due to additional crystal cohesion. The mobility mu then may inferred from the flow velocity averaged over the complete cell cross section as performed in our home built super-heterodyne Doppler velocimeter. For two particle species of 68 and 122 nm diameter we measured mu as a function of particle concentration. Starting from a plateau value at low concentration, mu decreases ap…

3D Colloidal photonic crystal fabrication improved by AC fields for frequency conversion enhancement in photovoltaics

2011

We report on the fabrication of high-quality 3D colloidal photonic crystals, whose finality is to modify the emission properties of frequency converters for photovoltaic applications. The band structure of the photonic crystals can be used to enhance the emission of down- and up-converters materials embedded in the 3D structures. However, in order to achieve an efficient conversion the first step is to obtain highly ordered templates with appropriated dimensions. We analyze here the photonic crystals obtained by the dip-coating or vertical deposition method. Moreover, by using perpendicular AC fields during the assembly of the nanospheres, the quality of the packed structures has been impro…

Opale: Photonische Kristalle

2007

Opale sind selbstorganisierte, kubisch dichtest gepackte Kolloidkristalle mit Kolloid-Durchmessern im Nanometer- und Submikrometerbereich. Aufgrund der periodisch modulierten Dielektrizitatskonstante bilden sich photonische Bandlucken aus, so dass die Ausbreitung von Licht mit Wellenlangen in der Grosenordnung der Gitterkonstanten unterdruckt wird. Dies erklart u.a. den brillianten Farbeindruck. Opale konnen synthetisch aus Polymer- oder Metalloxidkolloiden in einem Bottom-up-Prozess hergestellt und auf vielfaltige Weise chemisch funktionalisiert, strukturiert oder als Template fur ihre invertierten Strukturen verwendet werden. Anwendungsgebiete reichen von optischen Chips, Farbdisplays und…

Erratum: “Evaporation-induced assembly of colloidal crystals” [J. Chem. Phys. 149, 094901 (2018)]

2018

Intregrating metallic wiring with three-dimensional polystyrene colloidal crystals using electron-beam lithography and three-dimensional laser lithog…

2017

We demonstrate a method to fabricate narrow, down to a few micron wide metallic leads on top of a three-dimensional colloidal crystal self-assembled from polystyrene (PS) nanospheres of diameter 260 nm, using electron-beam lithography. This fabrication is not straightforward due to the fact that PS nanospheres cannot usually survive the harsh chemical treatments required in the development and lift-off steps of electron-beam lithography. We solve this problem by increasing the chemical resistance of the PS nanospheres using an additional electron-beam irradiation step, which allows the spheres to retain their shape and their self-assembled structure, even after baking to a temperature of 16…

Micro-structure evolution of wall based crystals after casting of model suspensions as obtained from Bragg microscopy.

2012

Growth of heterogeneously nucleated, wall based crystals plays a major role in determining the micro-structure during melt casting. This issue is here addressed using a model system of charged colloidal spheres in deionized aqueous suspension observed by Bragg microscopy which is a combination of light scattering and microscopy. We examine the evolution of the three-dimensional size, shape, and orientation of twin domains in monolithic crystals growing from two opposing planar walls into a meta-stable (shear-) melt. At each wall crystal orientation and twinning emerges during nucleation with small domains. During growth these widen and merge. From image analysis we observe the lateral coars…

Evaporation-induced assembly of colloidal crystals

2018

Colloidal crystals are often prepared by evaporation from solution, and there is considerable interest to link the processing conditions to the crystal morphology and quality. Here, we study the evaporation-induced assembly of colloidal crystals using massive-scale nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations. We apply a recently developed machine-learning technique to characterize the assembling crystal structures with unprecedented microscopic detail. In agreement with previous experiments and simulations, faster evaporation rates lead to earlier onset of crystallization and more disordered surface structures. Surprisingly, we find that collective rearrangements of the bulk crystal durin…

Crystallization of silica opals onto patterned silicon wafer

2006

We report on fabrication of high quality opaline photonic crystals from large silica spheres, self-assembled in hydrophilic trenches of silicon wafers by using a drawing apparatus with a combination of stirring. The achievements here reported comprise a spatial selectivity of opal crystallization without special treatment of the wafer surface, a filling of the trenches up to the top, leading to a spatially uniform film thickness, particularly an absence of cracks within the size of the trenches, and finally a good three-dimensional order of the opal lattice even in trenches with a complex confined geometry, verified using optical measurements. The opal lattice was found to match the pattern…