Assembly of large-area, highly ordered, crack-free inverse opal films
Birgit Hausmann
Reference
Keywords
Coassembly, colloidal assembly, crack-free films, inverse opals, nanoporous
Overview
new method for assembling highly ordered, crack-free inverse opal films over a centimeter scale. Multilayered composite colloidal crystal films have been generated via evaporative deposition of polymeric colloidal spheres suspended within a hydrolyzed silicate sol-gel precursor solution. The coassembly of a sacrificial colloidal template with a matrix material avoids the need for liquid infiltration into the preassembled colloidal crystal and minimizes the associated cracking and inhomogeneities of the resulting inverse opal films. preferential growth along the <110> direction and unusual fracture behavior. We demonstrate that this coassembly approach allows the fabrication of hierarchical structures not achievable by conventional methods, such as multilayered films and deposition onto patterned or curved surfaces.
