Stacking the Nanochemistry Deck: Structural and Compositional Diversity in One-Dimensional Photonic Crystals

One‐dimensional photonic structures, known as Bragg stacks or Bragg reflectors or Bragg mirrors, represent a well‐developed subject in the field of optical science. However, because of a lack of dynamic tunability and their dependence on complex top‐down techniques for their fabrication, they have received little attention from the materials science community. Herein, we present recent and ongoing developments on the way to functional one‐dimensional photonic structures obtained from simple bottom‐up techniques. We focus on the versatility of this new approach, which allows the incorporation of a wide range of materials into photonic structures. The development of active photonic crystals is a theme of great interest for a wide variety of applications. In this article, we address the structural and compositional diversity attainable in novel one‐dimensional photonic structures known as Bragg stacks or Bragg mirrors made from well‐known nanomaterials. The unification of various materials properties with structural color and active color tuning provides new chemical opportunities for the development of functional structures for a range of perceived applications from sensors to switches, delivery systems to catalysts.