Opals and Photonic Crystals

Opals are not only beautiful gemstones, they also have fundamental significance as prototypes for photonic crystals. They may lead to new photonic and photocatalytic materials. The crucial problems of these materials are the spontaneous defects and the desired incorporation of specially designed defects. In the works below, we described basic ideas and our approaches to special topics.

 

Review:
F. Marlow, Muldarisnur, P. Sharifi, R. Brinkmann, C. Mendive:
Opals: Status and Prospects
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2009, 48(34), 6212
DOI: 10.1002/anie.200900210

Fabrication of PhCs:
M. Muldarisnur, F. Marlow: Observation of Nano-Dewetting in Colloidal Crystal Drying. Angew. Chem. 53(33) (2014) 8761-8764
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201402423

F. Marlow, W. Dong:
Engineering Nanoarchitectures for Photonic Crystals.
ChemPhysChem. 4 (2003) 549
DOI: 10.1002/cphc.200200531

H. Li, F. Marlow:
Controlled Arrangement of Colloidal Crystal Strips.
Chem. Mater. 2005, 17, 3809
DOI:10.1021/cm051114i

Properties of Opals:
Muldarisnur and F. Marlow:
Crystal Orientation and Defects.
J. Phys. Chem. C 115 (2011) 414
DOI:10.1021/jp108975p

Fabrication of potential PhC Units:
Tian-Song Deng, P. Sharifi, F. Marlow:
Opal Shell Structures: Direct Assembly versus Inversion Approach
ChemPhysChem 2013, 14, 2893-2896
DOI: 10.1002/cphc.201300456