Fabrications of high-quality colloidal crystals by thermal annealing

胶体晶体作为一种光子材料已经引起了人们的广泛关注。在本研究中，我们将热退火法和区域熔融法应用到胶体晶体中，这两种方法已经被用来制备单晶和消除晶体材料中的晶体缺陷。我们发现，采用这种方法后，晶体的尺寸和光学质量都得到了改善。所得胶体晶体可以固定在聚合物凝胶中。

Colloidal crystals have attracted considerable attentions as photonic materials. In the present study, we applied thermal annealing and zone-melting methods, which have been used for fabrications of single crystals and removing crystal defects in crystalline materials, to the colloidal crystals. We found that both sizes and optical quality of the crystals are improved by the present methods. The resulted colloidal crystals could be immobilized in polymer gels.