Fabrication of Large-Area Two-Dimensional Microgel Colloidal Crystals via Interfacial Thiol-Ene Click Reaction.

Abstract

A method for the fabrication of high quality, large area 2D colloidal crystals (CCs) using poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) microgel sphere, an extremely soft colloid, as building block was proposed. First the microgel spheres were assembled into 3D colloidal crystals. The first 111 plane of the 3D crystal close to the substrate was then fixed in situ onto the substrate. Highly efficient photoinitiated thiol-ene coupling was chosen for the fixing purpose. Thanks to the high quality of 3D microgel CCs, the resulting 2D CCs exhibit a high degree of ordering. Large area 2D CCs were fabricated because large area 3D microgel CCs can be facilely fabricated. Besides planar substrates, the method allows the fabrication of 2D CCs on curved surface, too. In addition, the interpartical distance in the 2D CCs can be tuned by the concentration of the microgel dispersion.