Optical properties of three-dimensional P(St-MAA) photonic crystals on polyester fabrics

• Vivid structural color fabrics based on photonic crystal structure are prepared.
• The optical properties of structural colors on polyester fabrics are investigated.
• The structural colors on polyester fabrics can be modulated by different ways.
• Iridescence is accurately characterized in a multi-angle spectrophotometer.
• The position of photonic band gap of prepared photonic crystals is characterized.

The three-dimensional (3D) photonic crystals with face-centered cubic (fcc) structure was fabricated on polyester fabrics, a kind of soft textile materials quite different from the conventional solid substrates, by gravitational sedimentation self-assembly of monodisperse P(St-MAA) colloidal microspheres. The optical properties of structural colors on polyester fabrics were investigated and the position of photonic band gap was characterized. The results showed that the color-tuning ways of the structural colors from photonic crystals were in accordance with Bragg’s law and could be modulated by the size of P(St-MAA) colloidal microspheres and the viewing angles. The L∗a∗b∗ values of the structural colors generated from the assembled polyester fabrics were in agreement with their reflectance spectra. The photonic band gap position of photonic crystals on polyester fabrics could be consistently confirmed by reflectance and transmittance spectra.