Facile deposition of YSZ-inverse photonic glass films

An alternative all-colloidal and single-step deposition method of yttrium-stabilized zirconia (YSZ)-infiltrated polymeric photonic glass films is presented. Heterocoagulation of oppositely charged polystyrene (PS) microspheres and YSZ nanocrystals in aqueous dispersions created PS/YSZ core-shell spheres. These composite particles were deposited on glass substrates by a simple drop-coating process. Heterocoagulation impaired self-assembly of the particles, resulting in a disordered structure. Burn-out of the polymer yielded a random array of YSZ shells. The effect of the filling fraction of YSZ between these shells was explored. YSZ-inverse photonic glass films with a thickness below 40 μm achieved 70% reflectance of the incident radiation over a broad wavelength range between 0.4 and 2.2 μm. The YSZ structures demonstrated structural stability up to 1000 °C and maintained high reflectance up to 1200 °C for several hours, thus enabling applications as broadband reflectors at elevated temperatures.