Facile fabrication of spherical photonic crystals microspheres with angle-independent fluorescent functionality

In this work, we report a facile way to fabricate fluorescent spherical photonic crystals (SPCs) microspheres for the first time. The SPCs microspheres immobilizing Photonic Bandgap (PBG) structure into a hydrogel framework, which can be used to uptake nanosized CdTe NCs particles based on their reversible volume phase transition behavior. Moreover, the resultant SPCs microspheres can not only monitor surrounding humidity, but also exhibit well integration of fluorescence and PBG color in a single structure. More interestingly, the photoluminescence (PL) spectra of fluorescent SPCs microspheres are angle-independent on the curved surface which would open a novel insight into the fabrication of multifunctional optical devices based on PBG and PL functionalities.