Interplay of Mie and Bragg resonances in partly ordered monolayers of colloidal spheres

The transformation of 2-dimensional slab photonic crystal into 2-dimensional photonic glass was achieved by gradually increasing the sphere spacing and by randomising the lattice. The materials were prepared by assembling colloidal particles at the air/water interface using a Langmuir-Blodgett trough and the subsequent deposition on glass substrates. Highly ordered monolayers were obtained by using colloids of one size, while use particles of two different sizes and different partial concentrations allows to increase the spacing of the larger spheres and to randomize the lattice. Changes in the spheres arrangements result in a change of in-plane light propagation from band-like to hopping photon transport.