Abstract
Structural-coloured poly(styrene-methyl methacrylate-acrylic acid) (Poly(St-MMA-AA)) deposited carbon fabrics (Poly(St-MMA-AA)/PCFs) with fascinating colours (salmon, chartreuse, springgreen, skyblue, mediumpurple) changing with the (Poly(St-MMA-AA) nanoparticle sizes can be facilely fabricated by the thermal-assisted gravity sedimentation method that facilitates the self-assembly of Poly(St-MMA-AA) colloidal nanoparticles to generate photonic crystals. The particle sizes of Poly(St-MMA-AA) copolymer with core/shell structure varying from 308.3 nm to 213.1 nm were controlled by adjusting the amount of emulsifier during emulsion polymerisation. The presence of the intrinsic chemical information of Poly(St-MMA-AA) copolymer has been ascertained by Raman and Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) Spectroscopy analysis. Colour variation of the as-prepared structural-coloured carbon fabrics (Poly(St-MMA-AA)/PCFs) before and after dipping treatment were captured while using an optical microscope. The structural colours of Poly(St-MMA-AA)/PCFs were assessed by calculating the diffraction bandgap according to Bragg’s and Snell’s laws. The Poly(St-MMA-AA) photonic crystal films altered the electrical properties of carbon fabrics with the resistivity growing by five orders of magnitude. The differential electrical resistivity between Poly(St-MMA-AA)/PCFs and wet Poly(St-MMA-AA)/PCFs combined with the corresponding tunable colours can be potentially applied in several promising areas, such as smart displays, especially signal warning displays for traffic safety.
Highlights
Photonic crystal, an artificial crystal with highly periodic structures that are allowed to manipulate the propagation of light, has emerged as one of the promising optical materials for developing inherent structural colours, the studies of such materials possessing intrinsic structural colours by adjusting the photonic crystal bandgap into visible spectrum range has been conducted over the past few decades [1,2,3]
Water contact angles (WCA) of both pristine and plasma-treated carbon fabrics were collected, as depicted in Figure 1a, and the result shows that the plasma-treated carbon fabrics with a mean contact angle of 126.4◦ had improved surface wettability, approximately 16◦ of angle lower than the pristine carbon fabric with contact angle reaching 142.1◦ on average, which demonstrates that the initial infiltration of plasma-treated carbon fabrics into colloidal suspension would be faster than pristine carbon fabrics, and plasma treatment with the function of increasing wettability contributes to making carbon fabrics become more promising candidates as the substrates for the formation of photonic crystals on them through thermal assisted gravity sedimentation
The complete infiltration time (26 min) of plasma-treated carbon fabrics is extremely shorter than the time of sedimentation process (12 h), which might cause a slight effect on the interactions between colloidal nanoparticles in suspension and the plasma-treated substrates
Summary
An artificial crystal with highly periodic structures that are allowed to manipulate the propagation of light, has emerged as one of the promising optical materials for developing inherent structural colours, the studies of such materials possessing intrinsic structural colours by adjusting the photonic crystal bandgap into visible spectrum range has been conducted over the past few decades [1,2,3]. A variety of techniques, like photolithography [4], screen printing [5], atomisation deposition [6], inkjet printing [7,8], spray coating [9,10], gravity sedimentation [11,12], and electrophoretic deposition [13,14], have been proposed for the adhibition by applying photonic crystals onto substrates in several applications, including paints and inks [5], smart windows [3], energy-saving devices [15], night-time traffic safety and advertisement display [16], anti-counterfeiting security [4,17,18], eyeglasses and photographic lenses [19], and information storage [20] To realise such promising industrial applications, the studies on the large-area scalable fabrication technique of photonic crystals have been conducted, including melt-shear organization method [21] and oscillatory shear technique [22]. Colour appearance and resistivity discrepancy of Poly(St-MMA-AA)/PCFs was tested for applying in sunny- and rainy-day warning displays
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