Fabrication And Application Of Poly(Ionic Liquid) Photonic Crystal Films

Ionic liquids (ILs), a class of salts composed of discrete organic cations and anions, exhibit a series of unique properties including negligible vapor pressure, high ionic conductivity, a wide electrochemical window, and good chemical and thermal stability. Thereby, these distinct properties and features make them ideal candidates not only as green solvents for the synthesis, catalysis and separation, but also for the development of functional chemical systems and materials.The modulating the combination of cations and anions is the most important properties of the ionic liquids, functional groups as anions can be introduced into IL units, leading to ILs with additional function. On the other hand, three-Dimensional Ordered Macroporous photonic crystal (3DOM) can be made directly and effectively form colloidal crystal templating method, which has interconnected structures and bicontinuous structures (interconnected solid skeleton and interconnected pore system). Ordered structures enable the intensive interreactions with visible and infrared lights and exhibit multicolor.Based on the combination of unique properties of ionic liquid and photonic crystal technique, a new concept for fabricating new type of multifunctional materials was developed. The presented approach is characterized with four important and attractive features. First, The ordered macroporous poly(ionic liquid)s can not only serve as tunable photonic crystals, but also unique stable electro-optic switch. Second, the photonic poly(ionic liquid)s can as anion-directed molecular gating system and a surface with enhanced tunable wettability. Therefore, the poly(ionic liquid) photonic crystal film can apply on the humidity and ion-gating system. The fabricated sensors materials can possess a serials of desirable features, including high sensitivity, quick response, and well regenerative ability and reproducibility. More important, ionic liquids and photonic structures offer virtually unlimited tunability, their combination also provides a unique platform with tremendous opportunities for design of new sensing materials or chemical systems.