Rapid facial fabrication of silica colloidal crystal film at the air/water interface

A rapid and facial strategy has been developed to self-assemble 2D or 3D silica colloidal crystals at the air/water interface. The surface hydrophilicity of monodisperse silica microspheres were prepared by the Stöber method and modified by physical adsorption of a cationic surfactant (CTAB). The surface-modified silica microspheres were dispersed into an organic solvent and readily self-assemble at the air/water interface to form 2D monolayer film. The surface potential (ζ) of silica microspheres could be changed with different concentration of CTAB aqueous solution. When the surface potential of silica particles was of -36.67 mV, a 2D monolayer film with close-packed and high-ordered structure could be easily obtained and may further be transferred onto a solid substrate layer by layer to develop a 3D multilayer film. UV-visible spectrophotometer was used to analyze the orderliness of colloidal crystal film, the Bragg diffraction positions and silica diameters were in good agreement with those were theoretically calculated. In addition, Atomic Force microscopy (AFM) was used to observe the arrangement of colloidal crystals.