la3006234_si_001.pdf (1.2 MB)
Solvent-Responsive Structural Colored Balloons
journal contribution
posted on 2012-03-27, 00:00 authored by Kenji Higashiguchi, Masafumi Inoue, Tomohiro Oda, Kenji MatsudaThe structural colored balloons (SCBs) consisting of
polymer microcapsules
showed several structural colors developed by optical thin-layer interference.
The SCBs were prepared using a mixture of low- and high-molecular-weight
polystyrene to give solvent responsiveness. When the surrounding solvent
was transferred from water to the acetone/water mixture using a flow
cell, the SCBs swelled at first and shrunk subsequently. The gradual
color change of the SCBs was observed along with the size change.
The color change accompanying the size change was successfully reproduced
by assuming that the total amount of polymer in the thin film does
not change. The swelling rate was rationalized by the diffusion of
solvent through the shell polystyrene film to the inside of the balloons.