A new approach to hybrid nanocomposite materials with periodic structures

Hybrid core-shell polymer-semiconductor or polymer-metal microspheres were used in the "bottom-top" approach to production of nanocomposite materials with periodic structures. In the first step CdS and Ag nanocrystals were synthesized in situ on the surface of polymer microspheres using ion exchange between the counter ions in the electrical double layer of latex beads and ions in the liquid medium. In the second step a low-Tg polymeric shell was synthesized on the surface of hybrid particles, which upon annealing of the periodic array of three-layer microbeads formed a matrix. The proposed strategy employing hybrid microspheres as the functional structural blocks shows a new way to produce optically responsive materials with periodicity commensurable with the wavelength of light, an intrinsic property of photonic crystals.