Acta Photonica Sinica, Volume. 54, Issue 4, 0416002(2025)
Large-scale Fabrication of SiO2 APC and Patterning Application by Spray Coating
Photonic crystals have attracted great attention from researchers and scientists all over the world due to their distinct optical characteristics. There are two different kinds of photonic crystals, crystalline Photonic Crystals (PC) and Amorphous Photonic Crystals (APC). In comparison to the former, the amorphous photonic crystal can present a soft and angle-independent structural color. Among the different nano particles, nano-silica is widely used in the assembly of amorphous photonic crystals due to its simple preparation process. Spray coating is a common method for fabricating amorphous photonic crystals, which benefits for large-scale construction of APCs. However, during spraying, the rapid evaporation of the solution leads to the formation of a long-range disordered structure, which leads to incoherent scattering and finally reduces color saturation. In order to resolve the above problem, large-scale construction of SiO2 APCs on Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) substrate was made by spray coating process herein. Monodisperse silica nanoparticles were first prepared by the modified stober method and dispersed in ethanol solution containing Acetylene Carbon Black (ACET). A certain amount of Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) was added to improve the dispersion of the system to avoid strong agglomeration between the nanoparticles, which was fully sonicated and spray-coated. To protect the amorphous photonic crystal structure, aqueous acrylic resin was sprayed on the surface of the assembled APCs. The resin was able to encapsulate the microspheres well without destroying the internal structure of the APCs. To realize the patterned application of the APCs, a mask was added to block part of the spray liquid, and a simple spraying process was used for rapid construction of large-area SiO2 APCs and patterning application. It is found that APCs thickness has a significant effect on color saturation. The color saturation decreases with increased number of coating times (from 1 to 3 layers), which is attributed to more incoherent scattering for more layers. The addition of ACET can reduce incoherent scattering and results in enhanced color saturation. PVP is helpful for increasing the lattice spacing of photonic crystals, which finally improves the orderliness of APC structure. At the PVP dosage of 1.5 wt%, best color rendering effect with good color saturation is shown. Furthermore, the aqueous acrylic resin can penetrate into the gaps among the SiO2 microspheres to accomplish effective encapsulation. This not only prevents the silica microspheres from erosion by external environment, but also significantly improves the overall structural stability. Thus, a new method of hollow template technique for fast and large-scale fabrication of different kinds of patterns is provided. This study has guiding significance for the preparation of stable and highly saturated structural color films, which shows great potential in the fields of color display, functional coating and textile materials, et al.
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Congcong CHI, Xinggen XU, Xin XU, Danjie ZHANG, Jiahao LI, Jiangxue REN. Large-scale Fabrication of SiO2 APC and Patterning Application by Spray Coating[J]. Acta Photonica Sinica, 2025, 54(4): 0416002
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Received: Sep. 27, 2024
Accepted: Jan. 9, 2025
Published Online: May. 15, 2025
The Author Email: Congcong CHI (congcongchi@163.com)