Template Synthesis for Stimuli-Responsive Angle Independent Structural Colored Smart Materials

Like other conventional smart materials, structural color showing smart materials inherit physical and chemical characteristics imposed by the templates. Smart Material such as structural colored gel made of photonic crystal (PC) as template, exhibits angle dependent structural color because the color arises from the Bragg optical diffraction of light from crystal planes. But angle independent or low angle dependent structural color is required for devising of display with a wide viewing angle. To meet this purpose we prepared photonic glass (PG) from silica colloidal spheres. This PG is able to exhibit structural color, which is stable against the change of the angle of view and the angle of illumination. The transmittance spectrum evidences the angle independence of the structural color of PG. The Fast Fourier Transformation and the autocorrelation function prove that we prepared an amorphous material. The existence of short range order helps PG to exhibit angle independent structural color.