Quick Fabrication of Gigantic Single-Crystalline Colloidal Crystals for Photonic Crystal Applications

Abstract

Colloidal crystals are potentially mass-fabricative and the most accessible three-dimensional photonic crystals in the optical regime. We found that a centimeter-sized single-crystalline domain of a colloidal crystal, an ordered latex colloidal array, could be instantaneously tailored through a dynamic process, i.e., quenching nonequilibrium ordering in a concentrated suspension induced by a momentary shear-flow. The single crystal is obtained in an extremely simple manner in a tractable container with a fixed crystallographic orientation, and resulting samples are sufficiently stable against external disturbance for practical application. The proposed method will contribute to the evolution of photonic crystal research and applications.