Rapid on-chip integration of opal films and photonic gel sensor array via directed enhanced water evaporation for colloidal assembly

Abstract We developed a fabrication method for colloidal photonic crystal films and arrays with high quality and uniform thickness without need for any lithography. The method, “directed enhanced evaporation for colloidal assembly” (DEECA), employs a two-step process: a capillarity-induced infilling of an aqueous dispersion of colloidal particles within the thin two-dimensional (2D) channel arrays, followed by enhanced evaporation of water through the inlet, leading to laminar flow of the colloidal dispersion and subsequent colloidal crystallization. DEECA was confirmed to be a fast, precise and a cost-effective process with minimum loss of colloidal particles for preparing multiple opalline scaffold structures toward on-chip integrated photonic bandgap device arrays. To prove this, 2D arrays of poly(hydroxyethylmethacrylate) (PHEMA)-based inverse opal (IO) photonic gel pH sensors were fabricated via templated-photopolymerization of the precursor mixtures within the DEECA cells. It was confirmed that on-chip integrated photonic gel pH sensor arrays could be successfully implemented by using opal templates prepared via DEECA. DEECA could also be utilized for opal-templated fabrication of TiO 2 inorganic IO film arrays on a glass substrate.

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