Research progress of amorphous photonic crystals prepared by self-assembly

In nature, organisms or non-organisms have produced brilliant structural colors in the process of evolution. The structural color remains stable and will not produce chemical pollution. Among them, short-range ordered amorphous photonic crystals (APCs) have a lower angle dependence than ordered photonic crystals (PhCs), that is, the color of APCs hardly alters with the viewing angle. This feature provides APCs a unique advantage in wide-viewing display and anti-counterfeiting. The lack of long-range order of APCs has unusual electronic, mechanical, and lattice dynamic properties, which has recently attracted the attention of researchers in fields including materials science, chemistry, physics, and biolog. Based on this, this study summarizes the research on APCs structural coloring in recent years. Firstly, we introduce the natural examples of APCs and the principles of the interaction between light and APCs. Then, various bottom-up self-assembly methods for synthesizing colloidal amorphous arrays and how to modify colloidal particles to achieve different colors are highlighted. Moreover, the applications in different scenarios are also briefly introduced. Additionally, the existing problems in the preparation and application of APCs and their potential development are analyzed and discussed.