Preparation and optical properties of tin dioxide inverse opal film

As a novel structure, inverse opal, with three-dimensional periodic macropore and mesopore and huge specific surface area, has great promising applications. In this paper, tin dioxide (SnO2) inverse opal films were prepared with sol-gel method by cooperative opal template. The surface morphologies of SnO2 inverse opal films were examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), the inner structure of SnO2 inverse opal films was examined by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), the optical properties of SnO2 inverse opal films were studied and discussed in detail. Optical reflectance spectra reveal that, for the opal films, the wavelengths of the reflectance peak confirmed by the experimental reflectance spectra are consistent with the theoretical values; for the SnO2 inverse opal films, the wavelengths of the reflectance peak confirmed by the experimental reflectance spectra deviate from theoretical values largely.