Abstract

The polymer opals (POs) are representatives for HCPSR . They are optical composites consisting of approximately 50vol% dispersion phase of 200 nm scale hard spheres and a continuous phase of a gum-like medium. POs behave mechanically like rubbers and exhibit strain-sensitive colours due to Bragg diffraction from the opaline packing of the spheres, leading to various promising applications. POs are distinct from any of the colloidal, granular and particulate filled polymer systems, yet share similarities with all of them. In this talk I introduce the novel bending-induced oscillatory shear (BIOS) technique which provides a practical route for industrial production of POs in km scale, and the study on the mechanism of oscillatory induced crystallization of the spheres inside the rubbery medium.