Versatile polymer-derived nanocrystal microreactors towards uniform fluorescent photonic crystal supraballs

Versatile hydrogel-based nanocrystal (NC) microreactors were designed in this work towards the construction of uniform fluorescence colloidal photonic crystal (CPC) supraballs for the first time. As an independent NC microreactor, the carboxyl-terminated hydrogel microspheres were synthesized by seeded copolymerization of acrylic acid (AA) and 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) with micrometer-sized PS seed particles. The as-obtained latices can effectively capture guest metal ion components due to the abundant carboxyl groups on their surfaces, followed by the introduction of chalcogenides, and hence the in-situ generation of higher-uptake NCs was realized. Additionally, with the aid of the microfluidic device, the as-prepared NC-latex hybrids from the hydrogel-based NC microreactors can also be directly self-assembled into bifunctional CPC supraballs bearing uniform fluorescence and brilliant structural colors.