Study on the stability of the photonic crystals under different application environments and the possible mechanisms

Abstract

P(St-MAA) and SiO₂ photonic crystals on polyester fabrics were put in the different application environments such as water, oil, acid, alkali, high temperature, and ultraviolet radiation. The related changes of the morphology and the structural colors were characterized by 3D video microscope and field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and the possible mechanisms were deeply investigated. It is found that aqueous medium have little influence on P(St-MAA) and SiO₂ photonic crystals, however, oil medium restrains the photonic crystals from regaining the original structure. Even though in aqueous medium, strong acid and alkali conditions could easily destroy the photonic crystal structure to great extent even degrade the microspheres. Different from the good stability of P(St-MAA) and SiO₂ photonic crystals at conventional high temperatures, under the ultraviolet irradiation P(St-MAA) are severely destroyed due to the drastic thermal depolymerization, but SiO₂ photonic crystals keep favorable morphology and structural color.

Keywords:

• Photonic crystal
• structural color
• textile fabrics
• stability
• morphology

Acknowledgments

We were sincerely grateful to the financial support from National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51403188), ‘521’ Talent Program of Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, and The Young Researchers Foundation of Zhejiang Provincial Top Key Academic Discipline of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University (ZYG2015011).