title: Structural characterization of colloidal crystals and inverse opals using transmission X-ray microscopy.
abstract: A nondestructive tomographic technique was used to determine the crystallographic information of colloidal crystals comprising of polystyrene (PS) microspheres, as well as their silver inverse opals. The properties of the colloidal crystals, such as defects, grain size, grain boundaries, stacking sequence, and grain orientation, were determined using the full field transmission X-ray microscopy (TXM) with a spatial resolution of 50 nm. The PS microspheres (500-750 nm) which underwent a vertical electrophoresis process to form a face-centered cubic (fcc) close-packed structure with an ABCABC packing sequence. In addition, the colloidal crystal exhibited multiple grains, and an orientation variation of 6.1° in the stacking direction between two neighboring grains.
authors.affiliation: Graduate Program for Science and Technology of Accelerator Light Source, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu 30010, Taiwan, ROC.
authors.forename: Bo-Han
authors.initials: BH
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center, Hsinchu 30076, Taiwan, ROC.
authors.forename: Chun-Chieh
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu 30010, Taiwan, ROC.
authors.forename: Chen-Hong
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Liao
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu 30010, Taiwan, ROC. Electronic address: ppwu@mail.nctu.edu.tw.
authors.forename: Pu-Wei
authors.initials: PW
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center, Hsinchu 30076, Taiwan, ROC. Electronic address: song@nsrrc.org.tw.
authors.forename: Yen-Fang
authors.initials: YF
authors.lastname: Song
keywords: Colloidal crystal; Electrophoresis; Inverse opal; Polystyrene microspheres; Transmission X-ray microscopy