Journal
SENSORS
Volume 13, Issue 4, Pages 4192-4213Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/s130404192
Keywords
photonic crystals; structure color; colorimetric sensors
Funding
- National Science Foundation of China [5107313, 51203108, 91027039]
- Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province of China [BK2011355]
- Natural Science Foundation of the Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions of China [10KJA540046, 11KJB430011]
- Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (PAPD)
- Qing Lan Project for Excellent Scientific and Technological Innovation Team of Jiangsu Province
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Colorimetric sensing, which transduces environmental changes into visible color changes, provides a simple yet powerful detection mechanism that is well-suited to the development of low-cost and low-power sensors. A new approach in colorimetric sensing exploits the structural color of photonic crystals (PCs) to create environmentally-influenced color-changeable materials. PCs are composed of periodic dielectrics or metallo-dielectric nanostructures that affect the propagation of electromagnetic waves (EM) by defining the allowed and forbidden photonic bands. Simultaneously, an amazing variety of naturally occurring biological systems exhibit iridescent color due to the presence of PC structures throughout multi-dimensional space. In particular, some kinds of the structural colors in living organisms can be reversibly changed in reaction to external stimuli. Based on the lessons learned from natural photonic structures, some specific examples of PCs-based colorimetric sensors are presented in detail to demonstrate their unprecedented potential in practical applications, such as the detections of temperature, pH, ionic species, solvents, vapor, humidity, pressure and biomolecules. The combination of the nanofabrication technique, useful design methodologies inspired by biological systems and colorimetric sensing will lead to substantial developments in low-cost, miniaturized and widely deployable optical sensors.
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