Colloidal Coating Part 1

In this post there are several pictures of colloidal films being draped over carbon fiber in different configurations with different results:

In these two in the top, a 500 nm PS colloidal film was draped over an array of carbon fibers supported on a copper mesh.  These particular components of the fibers were supporeted by the copper meshing itself (not freestanding).  The copper meshing and the carbon fiber are coated very well as seen when the fiber is supported on PDMS.

In the next two pictures, these carbon fibers were freestanding over the copper meshing (span length = 1mm, maximum).  The particles have good ordering, except for the large protrusions off the fiber.  The film breaks into several films around the fiber.

In the final two pictures for this section, this was 500 nm particles were the fibers were again free standing, but the span length was 2.5 cm long.  These are taken from the "bottom" relative to the withdrawing direction.  Although these two are coated well, the coating of the fibers very inconsistent.  Furthermore, if there is a higher density of fibers, they will collapse due to capillary forces.  In the next post, I will show a couple of structures with patterned and unpatterned areas.