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Letter

Nature Materials 6, 202–205 (1 March 2007) | doi:10.1038/nmat1841

Self-assembly route for photonic crystals with a bandgap in the visible region

Antti-Pekka Hynninen , Job H. J. Thijssen , Esther C. M. Vermolen , Marjolein Dijkstra & Alfons van Blaaderen

Three-dimensional photonic crystals, or periodic materials, that do not allow the propagation of photons in all directions with a wavelength in the visible region have not been experimentally fabricated, despite there being several potential structures and the interesting applications and physics that this would lead to. We show using computer simulations that two structures that would enable a bandgap in the visible region, diamond and pyrochlore, can be self-assembled in one crystal structure from a binary colloidal dispersion.