coating may be applied to the substrate using methods known to one of ordinary skill in the art including a spin coating method in fig5 a and 5b a photonic crystal structure 506 having air columns 508 is flip chipped and pressure pressed into coating 502 as such structure 506 is positioned such that the uppermost surface 510 is on the bottom and the bottom surface 512 is upwardly facing upon removal of excess coating on the edges the coating is cured and released from substrate 504 by applying light pressure fig5 b and the structure is then returned to its upright position fig5 c in which structure 506 contains coating 502 only in the uppermost portion of columns 508 pressure may be adjusted in order to obtain more or less coating in the uppermost portion of columns 508 referring now to fig6 a 6c the schematics represent yet another example of a method of the present invention in which the coating is applied to a photonic crystal structure of the present invention using small spheres or particles 605 provided in a suspension fig6 a illustrates a method by which particles 605 provided in a suspension are applied to a photonic crystal structure 610 using a spin coating method similar to that described with fig3 a 3c particle size is chosen such that the average particle diameter is larger than the average diameter of the air columns the solution used with the.