Colloidal photonic hetero-crystals with controllable coupling

In this work we report the fabrication and characterisation of the three-dimensional photonic hetero- crystals prepared by means of colloidal assembling. In order to increase the mode mismatch between hetero- crystal counterparts, we assembled the self-organised opal from PMMA spheres of diameter D=510nm and interfaced it with the force-assembled Langmuir-Blodgett crystal composed from silica spheres of D=320 ran. The coupling strength was controlled by depositing a thin gold layer on the interface due course of the structure growth. The metal layers of 20 or 50 nm of nominal thickness acquire the properties of the perforated film by replicating the topology of the opal film surface.