我一直就对胶体化学抱有极大的兴趣。但是，生活中的胶体现象多数是脏了，变质了的东西，很多人对这些现象有一种条件反射式的厌恶感。这几天恰好有碰到了好几处关于胶体化学的报道，里面的照片都非常迷人。
Adv. Polym. Sci.
Adv. Polym. Sci. Volume 218/2008这一卷的主题是Interfacial Processes and Molecular Aggregation of Surfactants。这一卷的最后一篇短文Colloid Chemistry: The Fascinating World of Microscopic Order（Adv. Polym. Sci. 2008, 218, 251-259. DOI: 10.1007/12_2008_168）是一篇非常cool的科普，语言的通俗程度几乎是可以让一般人都能理解的。这篇文章力图把胶体化学现象的各个美丽侧面展现给大家，文章中beauty这个词就出现了很多遍。以下文章中展示的部分图片（点击看大图）。
A selection of iridescent surfactant solutions
A highly-ordered lamellar phase between crossed polarizers
Lamellar focal conics under the polarization microscope using color contrast by
A water-filled microscopic foam composed of dish soap, coconut oil, and water
Science Watch这一期的Emerging Research Front在材料学这一块是
WAFER-SIZE COLLOIDAL CRYSTALS; COLLOIDAL CRYSTAL FILMS; MULTICRYSTALLINE SILICON SOLAR CELLS; COLLOID-BASED ANTIREFLECTIVE COATINGS
选择了JACS上的一篇文章（J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2003, 125, 15589-15598. DOI: 10.1021/ja0379969）作为代表，并邀请了作者进行访谈。这篇文章介绍了一种制备高度规整和胶体晶体膜（Colloidal Crystal Films）的方法，以下是它的Supporting Information里的部分图片（点击看大图）：
文章的Graphical Abstract
Colloidal Crystal Film的显微镜照片
Colloidal Crystal
Colloidal Cryastal Film
在Science Watch的访谈中，作者用很生动的语言解释了Colloidal Crystal：
Similar to how oranges can be packed neatly in grocery stores, we mastered the packing of tiny spheres with the size of 1/100 of a human hair into perfectly ordered arrangements. In addition, we have worked out how to make those spheres precisely the same—we did not want any bananas placed alongside our oranges.
关于这项研究的进行过程，也很有意思。这是一名博士后带一名本科生所做的工作，其中的高温制备仪器，就是那名本科生动手设计和制造的。作者强调了长时间的耐心以及枯燥的调试和验证工作的重要性。以下是他的原话：
The research was initiated in 2001 by a postdoctoral fellow and later research associate, Dr. Vladimir Kitaev, in a project on photonic crystal applications in optics. Vladimir started to work on the perfection of colloidal microspheres and their deposition under different conditions. The high-T setup was constructed and then an industrious undergraduate student, Sean Wong, came and put his energy to work along with Vladimir’s on a project which later became a major part of the paper.
We are pleased to state that no specific problems were encountered along the way, but it is also instructive to note that we needed to take advantage of the extensive time needed to get everything just right and doubly checked before putting everything together to describe a reliable, highly reproducible procedure which others could easily adopt and utilize for their own diverse research activities.