Structural-color Production in Amorphous Photonic Structures

Abstract

[evdate 2012-10-04] Croucher Advanced Study Institute on New Materials and New Concepts for Controlling Light and Waves. Talk no.16 Host: HKUST Institute for Advanced Study.

Sponsor: The Croucher Foundation.

Abstract: In addition to pigmentation, structural coloration is another major way of color production in the biological world, produced by the interactions of light with photonic structures via optical effects. In this talk, we present our recent results of structural characterizations, optical measurements, and numerical simulations on three kinds of amorphous photonic structures: i) amorphous diamond-like photonic crystal in the feather barbs of the scarlet macaw, ii) random-close-packing of sub-micron spheres in the longhorn beetle Anoplophora graafi, and iii) disordered bicontinuous macroporous structure in the longhorn beetle Sphingnotus mirabilis. Our results show that the three kinds of amorphous photonic structures possess direction-independent photonic pseudogaps, which are ultimately responsible for the non-iridescent structural coloration.

Duration: 47 min.