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Letter

Suspended Self-Assembled Opal Membranes

Supporting Info

Andrew K. Bohaty and Ilya Zharov*

Department of Chemistry, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112

Langmuir, 2006, 22 (13), pp 5533–5536

DOI: 10.1021/la0602463

Publication Date (Web): June 1, 2006

Corresponding author. E-mail: zharov@chem.utah.edu.

Abstract

Suspended self-assembled opal membranes have been prepared from 440- or 170-nm-diameter silica spheres by evaporation of their colloidal solutions over vertically oriented 0.3-mm-thick silicon wafers containing frustum-shaped openings. Robust 0.5 × 0.5 mm² membranes with a thickness of ca. 300 μm have been reproducibly prepared using 170 nm silica spheres. The membranes show regular fcc packing with an exposed (111) orientation and are formed in a process that involves drawing silica spheres into the opening with the solvent meniscus.

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