UKMMN Metamaterial Picture Competition

Description: Opal-like nanoparticle composites are important to metamaterial devices, applicable to both responsive photonic crystals and high surface area electrodes for healthcare sensor and energy storage applications. These images observe an inkjet 3D printed polystyrene template undergoing optimisation to improve the order of the nanosphere array, prior to its conversion to a fully-printed metamaterial sensor by additional over-printing with the conductive polymer poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(4-styrenesulfonate) (“PEDOT:PSS”).  Using the Field Emission Gun-Scanning Electron Microscopy (FEG-SEM) (JSM-7000F JEOL), we can investigate the relationship between printing parameters and the resulting configuration of the polystyrene nanoparticles (average diameter around 240 nm ± 5 nm).