Dielectrophoretic Force-Induced Assembly Technique for the Fabrication of 2D Colloidal Photonic Crystals
Dielectrophoretic force-induced assembly technique was used to achieve close-packed 2D colloidal photonic crystals on parallel plate gold electrodes. These gold electrodes were patterned using conventional UV photolithography technique. The width and length of the parallel plates were 280 μm and 3 mm, respectively. The experimental tests conducted with 5.3 μm carboxyl functionalized polystyrene (PS) particles at various AC voltages, frequencies and particle concentrations showed that colloidal photonic crystals were fabricated on the ground electrode, instead of the working electrode, which may be attributed to the electro-osmotic flow and dipole-dipole attractions between the colloidal particles. It is concluded that this study provides promising results for the 2D colloidal photonic fabrication for the photonic industry.