Dresden 2011 – scientific programme
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SKM-DP: SKM Dissertation Prize 2011
SKM-DP 1: SKM Dissertation Prize
SKM-DP 1.2: Invited Talk
Tuesday, March 15, 2011, 11:00–11:30, TRE Ma
Photonic structures inspired by nature — •Mathias Kolle1,3, Heather Whitney2, Maik Scherer3, Pedro Cunha3, Moritz Kreysing3, Jeremy Baumberg3, and Ullrich Steiner3 — 1School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, US — 2School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK — 3Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
Biomimetic and bio-inspired efforts to produce novel photonic structures have attracted increasing research interest in recent years. Nature offers an enormous diversity of multifunctional micro- and nanostructures that induce outstanding, distinctive, dynamic coloration and high reflectivity. Various intriguing photonic structures have been identified on the wing cases of beetles, the scales of butterflies, the feathers of birds, in the shells of marine animals and also on the petals of flowering plants. Flora and fauna provide a huge reservoir of blue-prints for novel artificial optical materials and photonic systems. Here, we present a study of floral diffraction elements that provide a visual cue for pollinators, the development of mechanically tunable bio-inspired planar photonic elements and the artificial mimicry of the photonic structure found on the wing scales of the Indonesian butterfly Papilio blumei. State-of-the-art optical characterization by micro-spectroscopy and spectro-goniometry and optical modeling, including FDTD simulations, provide understanding of the working principles of the natural photonic elements. Artificially controlled self-assembly combined with alternative nanofabrication techniques is used in the development of the bio-inspired optical systems.