Photonic balls containing a microstructure of core-shell particles exhibiting angularly-independent structural color
AssigneePresident and Fellows of Harvard College
InventorsVinothan Manoharan, Sofia Magkiriadou, Jin-Gyu Park
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A photonic assembly for observing a preselected color includes an assembly of colloidal particles in a continuous liquid phase, the colloidal particles comprising a core scattering center and a shell layer surrounding the core, wherein the core scattering center is selected to scatter light having a predetermined wavelength, and wherein the shell has a thickness selected to provide an overall colloidal particle size that is about the same dimension as the wavelength of preselected color to be observed.
Claims22
A photonic assembly, comprising:
- a liquid droplet, dispersed in a carrier liquid, said liquid droplet comprising a plurality of colloidal particles, each colloidal particle comprising a light-scattering core surrounded by a first shell layer,
- wherein the plurality of colloidal particles is arranged with short-range order within the liquid droplet, wherein each of the colloidal particles has short-range order with up to a fifth neighbor colloidal particle, the plurality of colloidal particles being arranged without long-range order, wherein the plurality of colloidal particles is packed into the liquid droplet such that there is no observable Brownian motion in the liquid state, and
- wherein an observed color of the photonic assembly upon incidence of ambient light is determined at least in part by the short-range order and is independent of an angle from which the photonic assembly is viewed.
A method of making a photonic assembly, comprising:
- coating each of a plurality of light-scattering cores with a first shell layer to obtain a plurality of colloidal particles;
- and
- packing the plurality of colloidal particles in a dispersion liquid to obtain a liquid droplet, wherein the plurality of colloidal particles is arranged with short-range order within the liquid droplet, wherein each of the colloidal particles has short-range order with up to a fifth neighbor colloidal particle, the plurality of colloidal particles being arranged without long-range order, wherein the plurality of colloidal particles is packed into the liquid droplet such that there is no observable Brownian motion in the liquid state,
- wherein an observed color of the photonic assembly upon incidence of ambient light is determined at least in part by the short-range order and is independent of an angle from which the photonic assembly is viewed.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.