Abstract
Spherical colloidal crystals canbe fabricated using droplets as templates; droplets of aqueouscolloidalsuspensionaredispensedonahydrophobicsurfaceorin oil and then dried. The evaporation of the liquid mediumleads to the assembly of particles into close-packed structureswithasphericalgeometry.Sinceupondryingtheparticlestouchoneanother,thecrystallatticeconstantisuniquelydeterminedby the diameter of the particles. Therefore, fabrication ofcolloidal crystals with different wavelengths for their opticalstop band requires colloidal particles with different size orrefractiveindex.Itisdifficulttotunethediffractionwavelengthafter the colloidal crystal spheres are formed; this lack oftunabilitylimitstheutilityofthesestructuresformanypracticalapplications.Analternativeroutetotheformationofsphericalcolloidalcrystals that may overcome the limitations in tunability isthrough the use of charged colloids. They can form crystallinestructures but with a lower packing density in a liquid mediumdue to their repulsive electrostatic interaction between theparticles.
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