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Electric field tuning of magnetically assembled

photonic crystals
ARTICLE in JOURNAL OF MATERIALS CHEMISTRY C OCTOBER 2013
Impact Factor: 4.7 DOI: 10.1039/C3TC30399C

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Cite this: J. Mater. Chem. C, 2013, 1,

6129

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Electric eld tuning of magnetically assembled photonic

crystals
Jing Liu,b Yiwu Maob and Jianping Ge*ab
Electrically tunable photonic crystals are fabricated by encapsulating magnetically assembled colloidal
crystals inside an electrolytic cell, and their reection decreases or recovers when an electric eld is
applied or removed. The reection changes are caused by the change in the order degree of the
colloidal crystals, which can be further explained by the migration of Fe3O4 nanoparticles and the
change of localized ionic strength in dierent electric elds. A stronger electric eld is needed to tune
the colloidal crystals assembled by a strong magnetic eld, and a good match between their strengths is
signicant to improve the sensitivity and reversibility of the reection switching. Generally, the reection

Received 4th March 2013

Accepted 8th April 2013

falls within 1 s and recovers after 45 s depending on the eld strength. Since the electric eld can be
well restricted in the space between two electrodes and precisely controlled by the applied potentials, it
is possible to fabricate adjacent magnetic photonic crystal cells whose reection signals can be

DOI: 10.1039/c3tc30399c

independently controlled by the electric eld, which reveals a possible solution to high-resolution

www.rsc.org/MaterialsC

photonic crystal based optical devices.

Introduction

Responsive photonic crystals,1 which change their reection

wavelength or intensity under external stimulus, have stimulated enormous research interest due to their applications in
colour displays,2,3 bio- and chemical sensors,46 photonic
printing and decoration79 and anti-counterfeit labels.10 Generally, this stimulus can be any chemical or physical means that
eectively changes the refractive indices, the lattice constants
and the symmetry of the photonic crystals, such as temperature,11,12 light,13,14 molecules and ions,15,16 applied forces17 and
external elds.18,19 Among them, magnetic eld assisted
assembly has been proved to be a highly ecient method to
form magnetically tunable photonic crystals (MPCs), which can
consist of magnetic colloids in nonmagnetic media,19 or
nonmagnetic particles in ferrouid.20 It is also worth noting
that MPCs have a dierent one dimensional chainlike ordered
structure rather than the traditional three dimensional closepacked colloidal crystals, which broadens the routes to colloid
assembly.
The MPC system has many intrinsic advantages for the
fabrication of photonic crystal-based optical switches or display
units, such as its instant response to a magnetic eld, reversible
assemblydisassembly characteristics, contactless modulation
and wide tuning range across the visible range. For example,

Shanghai Key Laboratory of Green Chemistry and Chemical Process, Department of

Chemistry, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China. E-mail: jpge@chem.
ecnu.edu.cn; Fax: +86 21 62224356; Tel: +86 21 62224356

Department of Chemistry, Tongji University, Shanghai, China

This journal is The Royal Society of Chemistry 2013

superparamagnetic Fe3O4 colloidal nanocrystal clusters were

used to produce a magnetically tunable colloidal crystal, which
dynamically presented various visible colors as the external eld
strength was changed.21 Based on the interaction of magnetic
holes, one can even prepare a magnetically controlled
photonic crystal using nonmagnetic polymer colloids in ferrouid, which instantly assemble into an ordered structure in a
magnetic eld and disperse back into solution when the eld is
removed.22 Combined with an electromagnet, the MPC cell can
be easily converted into a preliminary display unit, which shows
stable structured colors or the native brownish color of
magnetite as the electric current is turned on or o.
As a recently developed technique, the MPC still has many
challenges along its journey to practical applications, one of
which will be the miniaturized control of MPC cells with high
resolutions. It is known that the MPC is a colloidal dispersion
with a magnetic response, and it can be easily encapsulated into
small vessels, like capillaries, to form microscale unit cells.
However, it is dicult to manufacture small but adequately
strong permanent magnets or electromagnets for the manipulation of these small cells. When these small magnets are
arranged into an array in the form of pixels in a display panel,
the interference between neighbouring magnetic elds will
cause diculties in independent control, because the magnetic
eld can hardly be restricted within a small space without
special shielding designs.
In this work, polystyrene colloids and ferrouid encapsulated between conductive glasses were rst assembled into a
MPC by a constant magnetic eld, and then an electric eld was
introduced to convert the MPC into an electrically tunable

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optical switch, whose reection falls or rises as the electric eld
is applied or removed. The decrease and increase in reection
was caused by the change of the order degree of the colloidal
crystals, which can be further explained by the migration of
Fe3O4 nanoparticles and the change of localized ionic strength
in electric elds. A stronger electrical eld was needed to tune
the MPC assembled by a strong magnetic eld, and a good
match between their strengths was important for not only the
sensitivity but also the reversibility of the reection switching.
Generally, the reection fell within 1 s and recovered aer 45 s,
depending on the eld strength. Since the electric eld can be
well restricted in the space between two electrodes and precisely
controlled by the applied potentials, we were able to fabricate
adjacent MPC cells whose reection signals can be separately
controlled by an electric eld, which reveals a possible solution
to high-resolution MPC based units and devices.

Experimental section

2.1

Materials

Diethylene glycol (DEG, 99%), anhydrous iron(III) chloride

(FeCl3, 98%), and poly(acrylic acid) (PAA, Mw 1800) were
purchased from Sigma-Aldrich. Ethanol, sodium hydroxide
(NaOH, 99%), ammonium persulfate (APS, 98.0%), and
ammonium bicarbonate were purchased from Aladdin Reagent
Co. Styrene (St, 99%) and methyl methacrylate (MMA, 99.8%)
were obtained from TCI Co. Ltd. Acrylic acid (AA, 99%) and
sodium dodecyl sulfonate (SDS, 99%) were obtained from J&K
Reagent Co. Commercial optical glue NOA 61 was purchased
from Norland. All chemicals were used directly as received
without further treatment.
2.2

Preparation of ferrouid and PS colloids

Aqueous ferrouid was synthesized by dispersing highly

surface-charged Fe3O4 nanocrystals in deionized (DI) water.
Fe3O4 nanocrystals with an average size of 11.5 nm were
synthesized through a one-step high-temperature polyol
process reported previously.23 In a typical synthesis, a mixture of
PAA (4 mmol), FeCl3 (2 mmol) and 15 mL of DEG was heated to
220  C in a nitrogen atmosphere with vigorous stirring. 4 mL of
NaOH/DEG stock solution (2.5 mol L1) was then injected into
the above solution when the temperature reached 220  C. The
resulting mixture turned black immediately, yielding Fe3O4
nanocrystals. These nanocrystals were rst washed with ethanol
to remove surfactants and then dispersed in 0.567 mL of DI
water, so that the volume fraction of Fe3O4 in the nal ferrouid
was about 5%.
Coreshell latex spheres of poly(styrenemethyl methacrylateacrylic acid) (poly(StMMAAA)) with size of 348 nm were
prepared via an emulsion polymerization reported previously.24
Typically, MMA (10.00 mmol), AA (13.89 mmol) and St
(182.60 mmol) monomers were mixed with an aqueous solution
(100 mL) of SDS (0.011 mmol) as an emulsier and ammonium
bicarbonate (6.30 mmol) as a buer agent. Polymerization was
started by the injection of APS solution (2.12 mmol) and was
completed aer 10 hours of reaction at 80  C. The PS particles

6130 | J. Mater. Chem. C, 2013, 1, 61296135

Paper
were washed with ethanol 3 times and with water 2 times by
centrifugation, and nally they were dispersed in DI water to
reach a volume fraction of 8%.
2.3

Fabrication of electrically tunable colloidal crystals

A concentrated solution of PS particles was mixed with ferrouid to obtain a homogenous solution with specic PS% and
Fe3O4%. 20 mL of solution was then sealed in a glass cell
composed of two transparent and conductive ITO glasses with
an average thickness of 400 mm. The upper and bottom ITO
glasses of the unit cell were connected to the positive and
negative poles of the DC power source, respectively. The as-made
glass cell was directly used for reection measurements and
microscopic observation. The magnetic eld strength applied to
the sample was controlled by changing the distance between the
sample and a permanent magnet, or by changing the current in
electromagnets. The electric eld strength can be controlled by
setting the output voltage of the DC power source. For the
fabrication of multiple cells in one glass slide, diluted HF
solution was used to etch the ITO layer to create insulate
boundaries between 2 neighbouring cells, so that the unit cell
can be independently controlled by the DC power source.
2.4

Characterization

The average size of the PS particles was determined by TEM

images obtained from a JEOL JEM-2100 transmission electron
microscope. The microscope images were taken with an
Olympus BX51M reective type optical microscope operated in
dark-eld mode. The reection spectra of the colloidal crystals
were measured using an Ocean Optics Maya 2000 Pro and USB
4000 spectrometer, both of which were coupled to a six-aroundone reection/back scattering probe. For all reection
measurements, the ITO glass cell was placed between the
NdFeB magnet and the reection probe. The probe was set
perpendicular to the ITO glass and parallel to the incident and
reective light as well as the orientation of magnetic eld, so
both the incident and reective angles are 0 (Table 1).

Results and discussion

Electrically tunable photonic crystals were fabricated by

encapsulating the MPC inside an electrolytic cell, and its
reection decreased or recovered as the electric eld was

Table 1 Parameters for the spectroscopy measurements, including the integration time of the spectrometer, the sampling interval time, and the interval time
of electric eld switching

Fig. 1
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8

Integration
time (s)

Sample interval
(s)

E switching
interval (s)

0.5
0.5
0.1
0.5
0.5
0.1

0.2
4.0
1.0
0.2

5.0
4.0

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applied or removed. Typically, the dispersion of monodisperse
PS colloids (3%) in ferrouid (2%) was sealed in an ITO glass
cell with an average thickness of 400 mm, which showed green
colour in a magnetic eld of 0.055 T due to the assembly of
nonmagnetic building blocks in a magnetic medium22 (Fig. 1).
The reection peak around 570 nm proved the formation of
bundle-like colloidal crystals suspended in solution. With the
magnetic eld strength unchanged, an electric potential (2.7 V)
was exerted upon the MPC, which caused the colour to turn
brown and the reection intensity to decrease immediately.
Once the electric eld was removed, they recovered in a few
seconds. However, when a relatively strong voltage (3.0 V) was
applied to the MPC, it showed the intrinsic colour of iron oxide
and the reection disappeared in just one second, both of
which would not recover even when the electric eld was
removed.
In order to understand the mechanism of switching on a
microscale level, the electrically tunable MPC was placed in an
optical microscope operated in dark-eld mode to investigate
the change of photonic structure during the electric eld tuning
(Fig. 2). When the unit cell was exposed to a magnetic eld of
0.055 T, the PS colloids with a volume fraction of 3% instantly
formed colloidal crystals in the ferrouid composed of 2%
Fe3O4 nanocrystals. As shown in the lemost image in Fig. 2,
each green dot was actually an individual microscale colloidal
crystal, and the green colour came from its 2nd order Bragg
diraction in the visible range. When a smaller electrical
potential (2.7 V) was applied to the unit cell, the micro colloidal
crystals agglomerated to form network structures, which suggested the electrostatic repulsion between the PS colloids
became weak in this case. Aer removing the electrical potential, the agglomerates immediately redispersed into the
aqueous solution as worm-like colloidal crystals. Here, the
electric eld can be considered as a sensitive stimulus, which
interferes with the colloidal crystals in solution. When the
switching is performed using a larger electrical potential (3.0 V),
the colloidal stability will be destroyed and the PS particles as
well as the Fe3O4 particles may form permanent aggregates, so

Fig. 1 (a) Scheme for electrically controlled MPCs. TEM images of (b) the Fe3O4
nanocrystals composing the ferrouid and (c) PS colloids. The scale bars are 20
and 500 nm, respectively. (d) Reection spectra of MPCs when the electric eld is
applied or removed, and (ef) corresponding photos.

This journal is The Royal Society of Chemistry 2013

Journal of Materials Chemistry C

Fig. 2 Optical microscope images of MPC tuned by an electric eld. The scale bar
is 10 mm. The application and removal of 2.7 and 3.0 V electrical potentials lead to
reversible and irreversible reection changes for MPC, respectively.

that the reection peaks will not be restored, even aer the
removal of the electrical eld.
The tuning of photonic structures by the electric eld was
actually caused by the change of localized ionic strength due to
the migration and redistribution of Fe3O4 nanoparticles in the
thin liquid lm. It should be emphasized again that a constant
magnetic eld is always exerted upon the sample in all experiments. Since the PS colloids and the Fe3O4 nanoparticles are
graed with highly charged carboxylate groups on the surface,
the ferrouid and the whole suspension are very stable against
aggregation, whether or not they are exposed to the magnetic
eld. The electromobilities of PS and Fe3O4 particles were
measured to be 2.685 and 3.241 mm cm V s1 respectively,
which means that the Fe3O4 nanoparticles will move faster in
the same electric eld. In the absence of electrical potential, the
external magnetic eld will induce magnetic attraction between
neighboring PS particles in the ferrouid and causes the PS
colloids to immediately assemble into colloidal crystals, which
are stabilized due to the balance between the magnetic attraction and electrostatic repulsion between PS particles. The
colloidal crystals diract green light and show up as green dots
under the optical microscope. In this case, the magnetic eld
drives Fe3O4 and PS particles to move toward the maximum and
minimum magnetic gradient respectively, so that the Fe3O4
nanoparticles tend to be enriched around the bottom ITO glass,
and the assembled PS particles are suspended near the upper
ITO glass. However, as the electrical eld was applied, some of
the Fe3O4 nanoparticles moved towards the upper ITO glass
(high potential electrode) due to their negative surface charge
and relatively large electromobility, which greatly increase the
localized ionic strength in the upper zone. The increased ionic
strength will screen the repulsion and attraction between PS
colloids, so that the assembly was disturbed, the order degree of
the colloidal crystals decreased and then the reection intensity
fell (Fig. 3). Since the diraction wavelength did not change
signicantly, the lattice spacing of the PS crystals seemed not to
change largely. Therefore, the reduction of intensity could be
attributed to the melting of colloidal crystals under the electric eld. Once the electrical potential was removed, the
magnetic nanoparticles moved back towards the bottom ITO

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Fig. 3 Migration and distribution of magnetic nanoparticles in the absence or

presence of an electrical eld.

glass again, and the proper ionic strength for assembly was
recovered. The reason for the irreversible response to the
application of a strong electrical potential is that the negatively
charged Fe3O4 nanoparticles would be greatly neutralized and
deposited onto the upper electrode in that case, so that the
aggregation of PS colloids was unable to reassemble even
though the electrical eld was no longer applied.
The preliminary investigation into the working mechanism
of the electrically tunable MPCs implied that a good match
between the strength of the applied electrical eld and the
magnetic eld was important for the sensitivity of the reection
switch. In order to understand their relationship and to determine the optimal electric potential corresponding to a specic
magnetic eld from 0.021 to 0.06 T, the dependence of reection intensity alteration (DR) on the electric potential was
examined through a study of MPCs composed of 2% PS colloids
and 3% ferrouid. It should be noted that, with the application
and removal of electrical potential, the reection intensity
decreased and recovered accordingly, and DR here refers to
the change of reection intensity between these two states. For
example, for a specic MPC unit cell assembled by a magnetic
eld of 0.021 T, its DR rises with the increase of applied electric
potential from 2.0 to 2.3 V due to more serious melting of the
colloidal crystals (Fig. 4a). Then, DR remains the same even as
the electric potential is further enhanced to 2.5 V, which shows
that 2.3 V is an adequate strength to induce the best optical
response and it is the optimal value for MPCs at 0.021 T, since
low power consumption is always desired. Using the same
method, the appropriate electric potentials for MPCs assembled
in 0.029, 0.038, 0.048 and 0.06 T elds were determined to be
2.6, 3.0, 3.3 and 3.4 V, respectively. The strength of the working
electric eld and magnetic eld exhibited a linear relationship,
according to the simulation in Fig. 4f, which demonstrates that
a stronger electric eld is required for a MPC assembled by a
stronger magnetic eld, because a high electric potential was
essential to change the distribution of Fe3O4 NPs and thereby
the ionic strength in an enhanced magnetic eld. According to
Fig. 4f, the electrical potential for an MPC cell (2% PS + 3%
ferrouid) working under a 0.055 T magnetic eld was 3.38 V.
When the ferrouid concentration was decreased to 2%, as in
Fig. 1 and 2, the magnetic packing force exerted on the PS
colloids and the magnetic interaction between the PS colloids
became weaker, so that a lower electric potential (such as 3.0 V)
was adequate to irreversibly destroy the ordered structure.
A good match between the electric eld and magnetic eld
not only optimized the sensitivity as discussed above, but also

6132 | J. Mater. Chem. C, 2013, 1, 61296135

Fig. 4 (ae) The relationship between the optical response (DR) and the applied
electric eld for MPCs assembled by magnetic elds of 0.021, 0.029, 0.038, 0.048
and 0.06 T. (f) The optimized working electric potential increases linearly with the
increase of the strength of the applied magnetic eld.

favoured the stability and reversibility of the MPC-based

reection switch, which must be considered for practical
applications. Typically, a suspension of PS colloids (2%) in
ferrouid (3%) exposed to a 0.038 T magnetic eld was connected to a DC power source, where the electrical potential was
set to 2.8, 2.9, 3.0 and 3.1 V. The electric eld was repeatedly
turned on and o with an interval time of 5 s and the reection
intensities were continuously recorded by the spectrometer over

Fig. 5 Tuning of the reection signals (R) of a typical MPC by periodically

applying and removing the electrical eld with an interval time of 5 s. The applied
E is (a) 2.8, (b) 2.9, (c) 3.0 and (d) 3.1 V.

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10 periods (Fig. 5). When a weak potential (2.8 V) was exerted
upon or removed from the unit cell, the reection intensity rose
and fell accordingly with the amplitude of variation remaining
the same. However, when a strong potential (3.1 V) was selected,
the amplitude decreased sharply, although it was much larger
at the beginning of the switching. The results here were
consistent with the microscopic observations, and quantitatively
describe the inuence of an electrical eld upon the amplitude
and reversibility of the reection switching. Combined with the
linear working curve in Fig. 4f, an experimental law can be
summarized, that for a unit cell working under a specic
magnetic eld, the electrical potential falling on the simulated
straight line is an appropriate potential which leads to a good
balance between sensitivity and reversibility. A stronger electric
eld would give good sensitivity at rst, but would lead to poor
stability aer several cycles. On the other hand, for a weaker
electric eld the variation of reection intensity will be small but
the reversibility will be guaranteed. It should be noted that the
upward trend of reection signal uctuation will occur within
the rst 10 cycles for most samples, and then the alteration
reaches a plateau in the following cycles. Although we observed
the reection change going at from cycle 9 to 15 for the samples
in Fig. 4a and b, the extra cycles were not included for consistency in the recording data.
Therefore, with the electric eld nely tuned to accommodate the magnetic eld, an electrically controlled MPC-based
reection switch with reversible optical response can nally be
obtained. As shown in Fig. 6, when the electric eld (2.8 V) was
periodically applied to or removed from the photonic crystals
assembled by a constant magnetic eld (0.038 T), its reection
intensity changed accordingly over 50 continuous cycles. The
cell had been switched by an electric eld for several cycles, so
that the uctuation of reection signals is at until the end. The
interval time of the electric eld switching was set to be 4 s
according to the turn on/o time of the unit cell, which will be
discussed later. The reection signals were quite stable in each
state and the reection switching was fully reversible. It should
be noted that the change of reection intensity (DR) was larger
than that in Fig. 5a, although the material composition and
external elds were all identical, because the integration time of

Fig. 6 Switching of the reection signal over 50 continuous cycles by turning

on/o the electric eld every 4 seconds.

This journal is The Royal Society of Chemistry 2013

Journal of Materials Chemistry C

spectrometer (0.5 s) was longer than that of the previous one
(0.1 s) due to the requirement of instant monitoring.
The response speed of electrically controlled MPC to external
elds is also a signicant indicator to evaluate the performance
of the reection switch. Specically, removing and applying the
electric eld were dened as turn on and turn o processes
respectively, according to the rising and falling of reection
intensity. In order to clarify how fast the reection rises, we
designed typical MPCs (PS 2% + ferrouid 3%) assembled by
dierent magnetic elds from 0.021 to 0.06 T. The same electrical potential (2.7 V) was rst applied to these unit cells. Then,
the electric eld was removed and their reection spectra
during the whole turn on process were recorded (Fig. 7). For
the MPC assembled in a 0.021 T magnetic eld, the reection
intensity gradually rose once the electrical eld was removed
and reached its saturated value aer 7 s. However, for the MPC
assembled in a 0.06 T magnetic eld, its reection quickly
recovered in 1 s. When all the turn on times had been
determined, we found that it decreased monotonically with the
increase of applied magnetic eld, because in the absence of an
external E, a stronger magnetic eld would drive the magnetic
nanoparticles to move towards the bottom region more quickly
and cause a faster redistribution of the Fe3O4 nanoparticles.
These results suggested that the turn on time was mostly
determined by the magnetic eld, and a strong eld usually lead
to the faster recovery of reection signals.
In a similar way, we investigated the turn o time of the
reection switch, which was mostly determined by the strength
of the electric eld applied to the unit cell. MPCs (PS 2% +
ferrouid 3%) assembled by 0.048 T magnetic elds were used

Fig. 7 Time evolution of reection intensities as the electrical eld (2.7 V)

applied to a typical MPC was removed. The magnetic eld strengths for the
assembly of the MPCs were (a) 0.021, (b) 0.029, (c) 0.038, (d) 0.048 and (e) 0.06 T,
respectively. (f) The turn on time decreases with the increase of magnetic eld.

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Fig. 8 Time evolution of reection intensity as various electric elds were

applied to a colloidal crystal assembled by magnetic eld of 0.048 T. The electrical
potentials were (a) 2.8, (b) 2.9, (c) 3.0, (d) 3.1 and (e) 3.2 V. (f) The turn o time
decreases with the increase of electric eld.

Paper
devices. It is known that an external magnetic eld can be an
eective stimulus to change the optical properties of a MPC
instantly, reversibly and remotely, which makes it ideal for PC
based optical switches or display units. However, the independent control of adjacent MPC cells using a magnetic eld will be
great challenge, because it is dicult to manufacture small but
adequately strong electromagnets and avoid their eld interference, although the miniaturization of MPC cells can be
realized due to the good uidity of colloidal solutions. This
problem may be addressed by the introduction of an electric
eld, as it can be nely restricted within a small space between
two electrodes, and it can also change the optical properties of
the MPC because the building blocks are highly charged
nanoparticles. As a demonstration, we encapsulated the
colloids in three 11.5  2.5 mm cells with intervals of 5 mm,
and all of them were rst assembled into dynamic colloidal
crystals by the same large size, low strength and constant
magnetic eld beneath the glass slides. As the ITO electrodes
were insulated from each other, we could separately change the
reection intensity of each cell using a three channel DC power
source. The tuning did not interfere with the others even though
they were close to each other (Fig. 9). Certainly, the current
preliminary results may still not meet the requirements of high
resolution, but they indicate a possible solution to the problem
and open another possibility for magnetically assembled PC
systems.

Fig. 9 Independent control of neighbouring MPCs using a three channel DC

power source. All three colloidal crystals were rst assembled by the same electromagnet (0.08 T) beneath the glass slides, and 3.2 V electrical potential was only
applied to the (a) left, (b) middle and (c) right of the three cells in each case.

as a typical system to study the inuence of the electric eld.

Dierent electric elds (2.83.2 V) were applied to turn o the
reection, and the reection spectra were recorded during the
whole process (Fig. 8). When a weak electric eld (2.8 V) was
applied, it took about 0.8 s to decrease the reection to a
balanced intensity, and DR was about 0.5. However, for a strong
electric eld (3.2 V), the switching time was shortened to 0.4 s
and DR reached 4.0 instead. Apparently, the response speed
(DR/t) greatly increased with the increase of applied electric
eld. According to the mechanism of the electrically tuned
MPC, a stronger electrical eld would pull more Fe3O4 nanoparticles to the upper ITO glass and lead to a larger localized
ionic strength, which greatly disturbs the assembly and
decreases the reection intensity.
The introduction of an electric eld changed the control
mode and improved the resolution of the MPC based optical

6134 | J. Mater. Chem. C, 2013, 1, 61296135

Conclusions

In summary, electrically tunable photonic crystals were fabricated by encapsulating the MPCs inside an electrolytic cell, and
their reection decreased or recovered as an electric eld was
applied or removed. The switching of reection was caused by
the change of the order degree of the colloidal crystals due to
the migration of Fe3O4 nanoparticles and the alteration of
localized ionic strength with or without an electric eld. A good
match between the strengths of electric and magnetic elds was
benecial for improving the sensitivity and reversibility of
reection switching, and the working electrical potential linearly increased with the increase of magnetic eld strength. The
turn on speed of the reection switch is determined by
the magnetic eld, while the turn o speed is determined by the
electric eld. Since the electric eld can be well restricted in
the space between two electrodes and precisely controlled by the
applied potentials, we were able to fabricate adjacent MPC cells
whose reection signals can be independently controlled by
the electric eld, which may have potential applications in
MPC-based optical devices.

Acknowledgements
J. Ge thanks the support from National Science Foundation of
China (21001083, 21222107), Shanghai Pujiang Program
(10PJ1409800), Shanghai Rising-Star Program (13QA1401400)
and the Scientic Research Foundation (SRF) for the Returned
Overseas Chines Scholars (ROCS), State Education Ministry
(SEM).

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