Homogeneous coating of photonic macroporous oxides with inorganic nanocrystalsThis article is published in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Chemistry Department at the University of York.Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available: Synthetic procedures, SEM, TEM, EDX, PXRD, DRUVS and BET measurements. See DOI: 10.1039/c4nr00490f

A simple method to obtain homogeneous sub-monolayer coverage of metal oxide and chalcogenide nanocrystals onto porous oxide supports is described. Quantitative nanoparticle coverage was probed using photonic macroporous oxide supports. Composites of nanocrystals of TiO 2 , Fe 3 O 4 or CdS dispersed onto macroporous SiO 2 or ZrO 2 all show a predictable linear shift in the photonic stop band position. A very simple method is described to achieve quantitative sub-monolayer nanoparticle (TiO 2 , Fe 3 O 4 or CdS) coverage of photonic macroporous oxides.