Angular resolved light scattering from micron-sized colloidal assemblies

Self-organized lasers of reconfigurable colloidal assemblies

Biological cells self-organize into living materials that uniquely blend structure with functionality and responsiveness to the environment. The integration of similar life-like features in man-made materials remains challenging, yet desirable to manufacture active, adaptive and autonomous systems. Here we show the self-organization of programmable random lasers from the reversible out-of-equilibrium self-assembly of colloids. Random lasing originates from the optical amplification of light undergoing multiple scattering within the dissipative colloidal assemblies and therefore is crucially de…

Structural Color Production in Melanin-based Disordered Colloidal Nanoparticle Assemblies in Spherical Confinement

Melanin is a ubiquitous natural pigment that exhibits broadband absorption and high refractive index. Despite its widespread use in structural color production, how the absorbing material, melanin, affects the generated color is unknown. Using a combined molecular dynamics and finite-difference time-domain computational approach, this paper investigates structural color generation in one-component melanin nanoparticle-based supra-assemblies (called supraballs) as well as binary mixtures of melanin and silica (non-absorbing) nanoparticle-based supraballs. Experimentally produced one-component m…

Weak coupling interactions of colloidal lead sulphide nanocrystals with silicon photonic crystal nanocavities near 1.55 microns at room temperature

We observe the weak coupling of lead sulphide nanocrystals to localized defect modes of 2-dimensional silicon nanocavities. Cavity resonances characterized with ensemble nanocrystals are verified with cold-cavity measurements using integrated waveguides. Polarization dependence of the cavity field modes is observed. The linewidths measured in coupling experiments are broadened in comparison to the cold-cavity characterization, partly due to large homogeneous linewidths of the nanocrystals. The calculated Purcell factor for a single exciton is 75, showing promise toward applications in single p…

Modeling Structural Colors from Disordered One-Component Colloidal Nanoparticle-based Supraballs using Combined Experimental and Simulation Techniques

Bright, saturated structural colors in birds have inspired synthesis of self-assembled, disordered arrays of assembled nanoparticles with varied particle spacings and refractive indices. However, predicting colors of assembled nanoparticles, and thereby guiding their synthesis, remains challenging due to the effects of multiple scattering and strong absorption. Here, we use a computational approach to first reconstruct the nanoparticles' assembled structures from small-angle scattering measurements and then input the reconstructed structures to a finite-difference time-domain method to predict…

用全息视频显微镜测量胶体聚合物的流体动力学

Measuring Colloidomer Hydrodynamics with Holographic Video Microscopy

本研究利用瑞利-索末菲反向传播法分析胶体聚合物链的全息图，追踪其三维构象变化，并通过与流体动力学模型对比验证了该技术在研究几何约束下胶体聚合物流体动力学方面的有效性。

Mie resonance engineering in meta-shell supraparticles for nanoscale nonlinear optics

Supraparticles are coordinated assemblies of discrete nanoscale building blocks into complex and hierarchical colloidal superstructures. Holistic optical responses in such assemblies are not observed in an individual building block or in their bulk counterparts. Furthermore, subwavelength dimensions of the unit building blocks enable engraving optical metamaterials within the supraparticle, which thus far has been beyond the current pool of colloidal engineering. This can lead to effective optical features in a colloidal platform with unprecedented ability to tune the electromagnetic responses…