The early stages of the self-assembly process of polystyrene beads for photonic applications

Results of a colloidal crystal growth by vertical deposition of nanometric polystyrene beads on a glass substrate under oscillatory shear are reported in this paper. This technique of deposition enabled us to study an early stage of the growth of films as a function of the bead concentration in the water suspension. The surprising analogy between single layer growth and the bulk colloidal crystal behavior has been found. Indeed, the sequence of transitions from low density disordered (LDD) phase to intermediate density ordered phase and then to high density ordered phase with increasing bead concentration has been observed.