Abstract
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•Highly adaptable sols are presented for processing of the electroceramic materials BaTiO3 and Bi2Ti2O7.•High quality thin films are produced by dip coating with good phase control.•Infiltration of cross-linked polystyrene templates led to high quality inverse opals.
Barium and bismuth titanate thin films and well-ordered inverse opal films are produced by dip coating from sols containing titanium alkoxides with acetic acid, acetylacetone, methoxyethanol and water. The inverse opal preparations used crosslinked polystyrene opal templates. Heat treatment in air produced tetragonal BaTiO3 or mixtures of the hexagonal and tetragonal phases, or phase pure Bi2Ti2O7. Good quality films were obtained with a thickness of 5μm from a single dipping, and the thickness could be increased by dipping multiple times. Inverse opals were well ordered and exhibited opalescence and photonic stop band effects.