Selective fusion, solvent dissolution, and local symmetry effects in inversion of colloidal crystals to ordered...

Polystyrene-methacrylic core-shell nanospheres, self-assembled into face-centered-cube-like colloidal crystals with their (001) planes parallel to the substrate, have been transformed into ordered pore structures by a toluene treatment. Detailed analysis by transmission electron microscopy reveals that the morphological transformation is preceded by an internal neck formation due to selective fusion of the polystyrene-rich core material, at the contacts between the nanoparticles, followed by the selective dissolution of the polystyrene-rich cores. We have demonstrated the importance of local symmetry and compactness of the nanospheres assembly in determining the nature of the neck formation and the existence of multiscale ordered pore structures in the square facing colloidal crystals. The pseudo layer-by-layer nature of the selective dissolution of square arranged nanosphere multilayers is responsible for the observed three-dimensional pore structures.