Abstract
Low color visibility and poor mechanical strength of polystyrene (PS) photonic crystal films have been the main shortcomings for the potential applications in paints or displays. This paper presents a simple method to fabricate PS/MWCNTs (multi-walled carbon nanotubes) composite photonic crystal films with enhanced color visibility and mechanical strength. First, MWCNTs was modified through radical addition reaction by aniline 2,5-double sulfonic acid diazonium salt to generate hydrophilic surface and good water dispersity. Then the MWCNTs dispersion was blended with PS emulsion to form homogeneous PS/MWCNTs emulsion mixtures and fabricate composite films through thermal-assisted method. The obtained films exhibit high color visibility under natural light and improved mechanical strength owing to the light-adsorption property and crosslinking effect of MWCNTs. The utilization of MWCNTs in improving the properties of photonic crystals is significant for various applications, such as in paints and displays.
Highlights
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been intensively investigated over the past years because of their unique properties and widespread applications [1,2,3,4,5,6]
The modified multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) have hydrophilic surface and good water dispersity, which are suitable for solution processing
The MWCNTs dispersion was blended with PS emulsion to fabricate photonic crystals
Summary
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been intensively investigated over the past years because of their unique properties and widespread applications [1,2,3,4,5,6]. The utilization of black materials as additive has been gained interest in fabricating photonic crystals with enhanced optical properties [20,21]. Carbon black (CB) and black dye have been used as doping agent to obtain photonic crystal films with enhanced structural color visibility [22,23,24,25,26,27]. Utilization of CNT in the fabrication of photonic crystals may provide immediate enhancement both in the optical and mechanical properties. The structural color visibility of the obtained PS/MWCNTs composite films under natural light were greatly enhanced because of the light-absorbing property of the doped MWCNTs. In addition, the mechanical properties of the PS films were improved because of the sufficient interaction and crosslinking effect among PS colloidal particles and MWCNTs
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