Optical Manipulation and Application by Three Dimensional Colloidal Photonic Crystals

Manipulation of photons has become the core studies in area of photonics in the 21(th) century. Colloidal photonic crystals (CPC), with the characteristic of photonic stopband due to their periodic structures, can control the propagation of light in a certain direction, which show applications in optics, electronics, catalysis, display, detection and so on. Furthermore, CPC can offer the guidance for designing structures and optimizing properties of optical functional materials. In this paper, the recent achievements on applications in this field are presented from two aspects. On the one hand, the optical manipulation of photonic crystals is based on changing the stopband characteristics through variation of the refractive index or the lattice constant by applying external stimuli which provides a promising strategy to develop the technology in chemical sensors and biosensors. On the other hand, the optical behavior can be effectively controlled based on emitters embedded in PCs, which promotes the development of optical devices. Finally, this paper brings forward perspectives toward in-depth investigation of colloidal photonic crystals.