Tunable one-dimensional photonic crystals from soft materials

Photonic crystals are periodic dielectric nanostructures that can affect the propagation of light. Polymer-based photonic crystals have attracted great attentions for their potential application as sensors or optical switches due to their stimuli-responsive properties. This review summarizes the recent developments in one-dimensional (1-D) polymer-based photonic crystals, including the inspiration of the material from nature, principles for design and fabrication, mechanism of color tuning, and their tunable structural color in responsive to various stimuli. A number of fabrication methods, either by bottom-up or top-down approaches for 1-D polymeric photonic crystals have been overviewed. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.