A lost-wax approach to monodisperse colloids and their crystals

We report a nanoscale "lost-wax" method for forming colloids with size dist ributions around 5% and their corresponding colloidal crystals. Macroporous polymer templates are first prepared from a silica colloidal crystal. We t hen use the uniform and interconnected voids of the porous polymer:to gener ate a wide variety of highly monodisperse inorganic, polymeric, and metalli c solid and core-shell colloids, as well as hollow colloids with controllab le shell thickness, as colloidal crystals. We can also uniformly deform the polymer template to alter colloidal shape and demonstrate the formation of elliptical particles with precisely controlled aspect ratios.