Shear-ordered face-centred cubic photonic crystals

Abstract
Large-area face-centred cubic photonic crystals are fabricated by the two-dimensional shear-alignment of stabilised 720 nm diameter PMMA spheres dispersed in an epoxy resin. The resulting crystal is made permanent by exposure to UV light, thus solidifying the epoxy resin. The technique is rapid and produces high quality, large-area crystals.