Artificial opals prepared by melt compression

In recent years, colloidal crystals with a refractive index varying periodically on the scale of the light wavelengths have been prepared by various methods. These photonic crystals reflect light and exhibit, at sufficiently strong contrast, even a complete band-gap in which light cannot propagate in any direction. Most studies published so far were aimed at such high-contrast photonic crystals with a complete band-gap or their precursors. Frequently, a face-centered cubic (fcc) lattice was built up from monodisperse polymer or silica spheres with diameters in the submicron range. Methods as sedimentation and drying of dispersions led to usually small and thin specimens. This report deals with films that were produced by a novel technique based on shear flow in the melts of polymer core-shell latex spheres. The process is fast and yields large area films, thin or thick, in which the latex spheres are crystallized in fcc order. The refractive index contrast of these purely polymeric films is too small for a complete band-gap photonic crystal, but the films are attractive color materials showing wavelength and angle dependent reflection colors.