Open AccessEvaporation self-assembly method to fabricate high-quality polystyrene microsphere colloid crystal
Author(s) -
Xiaodong Wang,
Peng Dong,
Guiyun Yi
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
wuli xuebao
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.199
H-Index - 47
ISSN - 1000-3290
DOI - 10.7498/aps.55.2092
Subject(s) - polystyrene , materials science , colloid , evaporation , scanning electron microscope , chemical engineering , micrometer , microsphere , colloidal crystal , suspension (topology) , nanotechnology , composite material , polymer , optics , physics , mathematics , homotopy , pure mathematics , engineering , thermodynamics
Evaporation self-assembly method, which is used to assemble sub-micrometer polys tyrene microspheres, is presented in this paper. In this process the polystyrene microspheres are effectively assembled at the gas-liquid interface of suspensio n as moisture evaporates at fixed temperature. The scanning electron microscope shows that the three-dimensional colloidal assemblies have regular close-packed face-centered cubic structure. It was shown that the evaporation was blocked by the polystyrene colloid crystals growing at the gas-liquid interface, and the am ount of the polystyrene microspheres transferred to the colloid crystals from th e suspension in unit time increased with the area of the assemblies. High-qualit y polystyrene colloid crystals can be assembled when not changing or decreasing the phase concentration, whose changes can be controlled by adjusting the assemb ly area and the evaporation temperature.