Controlled and rapid ordering of oppositely charged colloidal particles

Oppositely charged colloidal particles in suspension undergo rapid coagulation in the absence of any repulsive component in the interaction potential. With an added steric component serving as the repulsive force it is possible to order oppositely charged particles, which are also weakly charged, in solution. However given the novel features obtainable for an ordered structure from strong oppositely charged particles it becomes imperative to gain a full understanding of methods that can order these particles. Here we report a simple and rapid layer-by-layer method to order strongly and oppositely charged particles. Although this method is in principle scalable to order multiple layers of oppositely charged particles, herein we report ordering of one layer of positively charged particles onto a substrate made of negatively charged particles. This method utilizes a non-ionic surfactant to induce a steric repulsive force between particles and involves spin-coating to disperse and order particles on a very short time scale. The ordered structure obtained through this process is verified as the structure with one of the lowest interaction energies. (c) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.