We are trying to synthesize Titania Inverse opal, but unfortunately we have encounterd a problem in infiltration step.
None of the methods described in literature is helpful and the result is not satisfactory.
We have tried dip coating, spin coating, injection and so on. The colorful prepared PMMA opal changes to white after infiltration, but after calcination step nothing special is remained on the substrate.
Different factors such as precursor concentration and its amount tried to be optimized. But still there is not a result. (we prepare a transparent precursor using propanol under nitrogen flow, as we can't make it transparent with ethanol.)
Do you have any suggestions to solve the problem?
Hi, in our work, we created Inverse opals by calcining using monodisperse polystyrene spheres with a diameter of 300 nm and titanium dioxide nanoparticles of 15-24 nm (TiO2 synthesis [https://doi.org/10.1039/C9NR00616H]). By varying the concentrations, we were able to create small areas of Inverse opals that gave Bragg's diffraction. Unfortunately, we were not able to get large-scale areas. An important factor is the rate of temperature increase during calcination and the concentration of titanium dioxide nanoparticles.
