Cover Picture: Functionalization of Crystalline Colloidal Arrays through Click Chemistry (Adv. Mater. 21/2007)

Photonic crystals based on electrostatically-stabilized colloidal arrays dispersed in a liquid medium are of interest to materials scientists partly because of the optical tuning afforded to theses systems with a variation in interparticle distance. On p. 3507, Stephen Foulger and co-workers from Clemson University, USA report on a general strategy for the preparation of well-defined and regioselectively functionalized ordered colloidal particles through the exploitation of “click” chemistry. Click transformations have found utility in the synthesis and/or functionalization of a range of systems. In addition, the solvochromic tuning of the ordered arrays is employed to modify the emission spectra of the surface-attached photoluminescent dyes.