A new one-dimensional photonic crystal combination of TiO2/CuO for structural color applications

Abstract

Owing to their unique optical properties, an interest in 1-D multilayer photonic crystals has been recently extremely on increase. By creating multilayer coatings, structural colors can be obtained without any required pigment. In this study, stacked layers of TiO2 and CuO photonic crystal coatings were produced by using the sol-gel method for up to seven layers from alternatively anatase and tenorite phases. The combination of the TiO2 layer with the CuO layer has been studied for the production of photonic crystal coatings that can lead to many applications such as structural color, optical sensor, and optic filters. It was proved that structural colors such as violet, green, blue and indigo could be successfully obtained from three and five layered photonic crystal coatings. Additionally, it was observed that multilayer coatings with the first and last layers are CuO have better surface morphologies compared to the coatings where the first and last layers are TiO2.