Fabrication and characterization of novel composite membranes composed of photonic crystals and TiO2 nanotube array films

• Novel PC/TNA composite membranes were fabricated.
• The procedure for fabrication of the composite membranes was presented.
• The results showed that the membranes possessed very high crystalline quality.
• The mechanism of colloidal particles assembling on the TNA substrate was proposed.

Novel composite membranes composed of photonic crystals (PCs) and TiO2 nanotube array (TNA) films have been fabricated by combining the room temperature floating self-assembly (RTFSA) method, recently developed by our research group, and the liquid-phase deposition technique. By applying this combined procedure, polystyrene (PS) opal PC/TNA and TiO2 inverse opal PC/TNA composite membranes were prepared. Scanning electron microscopy and ultraviolet/visible spectroscopy analyses showed that the membrane samples possessed very high crystalline quality. Notably, the ordered packing of the PS microspheres from the top to the bottom of the opal PC film was not affected by the surface roughness of the porous TNA substrate. This is attributed to the self-assembly mechanism of the colloidal particles, which produces a three-dimensional ordered structure in the RTFSA method. Herein, the crystallization of the colloidal particles occurred at the surface of the colloidal suspension, and the crystal growth proceeded downward from the surface of the suspension to the substrate.

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