Colloidal route yields diamond-like crystals
At a Glance
Section titled āAt a Glanceā| Metadata | Details |
|---|---|
| Publication Date | 2020-09-28 |
| Journal | C&EN Global Enterprise |
| Authors | MITCH JACOBY |
Abstract
Section titled āAbstractāThirty years ago, theoreticians predicted that ordered materials with a diamond-like structure would be able to control the flow of light in much the same way that semiconductors control the flow of electric current. These so-called could be used for optical switching and computing. Since then, researchers have made progress, devising methods for coaxing microscopic particles to line up and form various types of photonic crystals that function as optical waveguides and other devices. But due to synthesis difficulties, most of these materials have lacked the ideal cubic diamond structure and its coveted optical properties. A team led by Stefano Sacanna and David J. Pine of New York University has now come up with a colloidal chemistry method for making materials with the sought-after structure, advancing the field toward its goal ( 2020, DOI: ). The researchers combined micrometer-sized polystyrene spheres with droplets of a polymerizable oil to form tetrahedral