Colloidal particle-assembled photonic crystals offer sustainable alternatives to traditional structural color materials, but their commercial use is limited by low optical quality and slow fabrication. We demonstrate that embedding colloidal particles in suitable matrix materials and adjusting particle volume fraction can accelerate fabrication by 102-106 times while maintaining high optical performance. Using common materials such as glycerol and honey, we show that uniform photonic crystals with sharp 90% reflectance peaks can rapidly form under oscillatory shear induced by hand-flapping or roll-to-roll processing at meter-per-second speeds. A single shear oscillation within 0.05-0.5 s produces highly ordered structures that typically require thousands of oscillations. We analyze the mechanisms governing efficient photonic crystal assembly and outline practical principles for scalable production.
Instant Photonic Crystals with a Flap.
Feng Gao,Junjun Qiu,Tong An,Xinyu Jiang,Christian Schäfer,Nan Shi,Ge Wang,Xiuhong Li,Bin Zhu,Tan Sui,Wei You,Wei Yu,Tongxiang Fan,Qibin Zhao
Published 2025 in ACS Nano
ABSTRACT
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- Publication year
2025
- Venue
ACS Nano
- Publication date
2025-11-10
- Fields of study
Medicine, Materials Science, Physics
- Identifiers
- External record
- Source metadata
Semantic Scholar, PubMed
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