A porous hollow spherical
photonic crystal sensor for detecting
xylene gas and a method thereof, comprising synthesizing PS@SiO2 core-shell colloids, assembling into spherical photonic crystals by
microfluidics, calcining to remove the
polystyrene inner core to form a hollow SiO2 structure, and introducing a porous structure by controllable chemical
etching. Subsequently, functionalization is performed by using P(VBC-co-MMA) to obtain a porous hollow spherical
photonic crystal sensor, which is endowed with strong molecular affinity for
xylene, and selective gas adsorption of the porous
photonic crystal is realized. Benefiting from the super-symmetrical spherical structure, the obtained photonic
crystal sensor exhibits an inherent angle-independent optical response, overcoming the limitation of
angle dependence of thin film photonic
crystal sensors.
Exposure to
xylene gas shows a significant reversible
red shift of the optical stop band and a clear color change, which is due to the increase of the
effective refractive index caused by vapor
diffusion and adsorption. By monitoring the movement of the optical stop band in air and saturated xylene,
visual detection of xylene gas can be realized.