Controlled Insertion of Planar Defect in Inverse Opals for Anticounterfeiting Applications.

Inverse opals have been used for structural coloration and photonic applications owing to their photonic bandgap properties. When the photonic structures contain planar defects, they provide defect modes, which are useful for lasing, sensing, and waveguiding. However, it remains a challenge to insert a planar defect into inverse opals in a reproducible manner. Here, we report a new method for producing planar-defect-inserted inverse opals using sequential capillary wetting of colloidal crystals and creating micropatterns through photolithography. Three cycles of deposition and thermal embedding of colloidal crystals into the underlying film of negative photoresist were performed. In the three cycles, opal, particle monolayer, and opal were sequentially employed, which yielded the monolayer-templated planar defect sandwiched by two inverse opals after particle removal. The planar defect provided a passband whose wavelength can be controlled by adjusting the diameter of particles for the defect layer. Moreover, the defect-inserted inverse opals can be micropatterned by photolithography as the negative photoresist is used as a matrix. The resulting micropatterns deliver a unique spectral code featured by a combination of stop band and defect mode and a graphical code dictated by photolithography, being useful for anticounterfeiting applications.