title: Controllable Fabrication of Noniridescent Microshaped Photonic Crystal Assemblies by Dynamic Three-Phase Contact Line Behaviors on Superhydrophobic Substrates.
abstract: Enormous research efforts have been made to self-assemble monodisperse colloidal spheres into special microscopic shapes (e.g., superbeads, superballs, or doughnuts), due to their widespread applications in sensors, displays, separation processes, catalysis, etc. But realization of photonic crystal (PC) assemblies with both facile microshape control and a noniridescent property is still a tough task. Herein, we demonstrate the controllable fabrication of noniridescent microshaped PC assemblies by evaporation-induced self-assembly inside aqueous colloidal dispersion droplet templates on superhydrophobic substrates. The microshapes of the PC assemblies could be tuned from microbeads to microwells to microellipsoids by manipulating the dynamic behaviors of the three-phase contact line of the colloidal droplets during the evaporating process. Structure characterization shows that the PC assemblies are crack-free, consisting of an ordered periodic arrangement of colloidal spheres in the surface layers and amorphous inner layers. The incorporation of black Fe3O4 nanoparticles into the PC assembly lattice is demonstrated to endow the PC assemblies with enhanced noniridescent structural colors with wide-viewing angles and a superparamagnetic property. The crack-free noniridescent PC assemblies with controlled microshapes have promising applications in the fields of nontoxic, nonbleaching pigments and energy-efficient full-color display pixels, and their facile fabrication procedure may provide guidance for creating new types of substructured colloidal particles.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Inorganic Nanomaterials of Hebei Province, College of Chemistry and Material Science, Hebei Normal University , Shijiazhuang, 050024 P. R. China.
authors.forename: Jinming
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Inorganic Nanomaterials of Hebei Province, College of Chemistry and Material Science, Hebei Normal University , Shijiazhuang, 050024 P. R. China.
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Inorganic Nanomaterials of Hebei Province, College of Chemistry and Material Science, Hebei Normal University , Shijiazhuang, 050024 P. R. China.
authors.forename: Zhandong
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Gu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Inorganic Nanomaterials of Hebei Province, College of Chemistry and Material Science, Hebei Normal University , Shijiazhuang, 050024 P. R. China.
authors.forename: Guofu
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Inorganic Nanomaterials of Hebei Province, College of Chemistry and Material Science, Hebei Normal University , Shijiazhuang, 050024 P. R. China.
authors.forename: Yu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Sciences, City University of Hong Kong , Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Xi
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Yao
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Green Printing, Key Laboratory of Organic Solids, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190 P. R. China.
authors.forename: Yanlin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Song
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Green Printing, Key Laboratory of Organic Solids, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190 P. R. China.
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Jiang
keywords: microshapes; noniridescence; photonic crystals; structural colors; superhydrophobic substrates