Nanocrystallization of single crystal opal films and the spectral characteristic of related photonic structures

摘要

The prospects for using thin single crystal films of opal structures consisting of monodisperse spherical silica particles (MSSPs) in microphotonic devices make it necessary to investigate comprehensively their single crystal growth mechanism. The fact that the growth of such films involves interaction between MSSPs and the nanocrystallization process has not been discussed in the literature, the investigations were mainly empirical [1–5], and the appearance of regularstructures was explained merely by their self-assembling. Meanwhile, it is impossible to obtain high-quality single crystal opal films without a clear notion of the essence of phenomena occurring during their growth.