Mimicking the colourful wing scale structure of the Papilio blumei butterfly

• Published in: Nature nanotechnology Vol. 5; no. 7; pp. 511 - 515
• Main Authors: Scherer, Maik R. J, Kolle, Mathias, Baumberg, Jeremy J, Vukusic, Pete, Steiner, Ullrich, Salgard-Cunha, Pedro M, Huang, Fumin, Mahajan, Sumeet
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 01-07-2010; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 639/624/399; 639/925/350/2251; 639/925/357/537; Animals; Biomimetics; Butterflies - anatomy & histology; Chemistry and Materials Science; Color; Crystals; Gold; letter; Materials Science; Metals - chemistry; Microscopy, Electron, Scanning; Nanostructures - chemistry; Nanostructures - ultrastructure; Nanotechnology; Nanotechnology and Microengineering; Optical properties; Optics and Photonics; Papilio; Physics; Pigmentation - physiology; Polystyrenes - chemistry; Refractometry; Wings, Animal - anatomy & histology; United Kingdom > UK
• ISSN: 1748-3387; 1748-3395
• DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2010.101

The brightest and most vivid colours in nature arise from the interaction of light with surfaces that exhibit periodic structure on the micro- and nanoscale. In the wings of butterflies, for example, a combination of multilayer interference, optical gratings, photonic crystals and other optical structures gives rise to complex colour mixing. Although the physics of structural colours is well understood, it remains a challenge to create artificial replicas of natural photonic structures
1
,
2
,
3
. Here we use a combination of layer deposition techniques, including colloidal self-assembly, sputtering and atomic layer deposition, to fabricate photonic structures that mimic the colour mixing effect found on the wings of the Indonesian butterfly
Papilio blumei
. We also show that a conceptual variation to the natural structure leads to enhanced optical properties. Our approach offers improved efficiency, versatility and scalability compared with previous approaches
4
,
5
,
6
.
Colour mixing and other optical effects displayed by the wings of the
Papilio blumei
butterfly have now been replicated by a combination of colloid self-assembly and other standard layer-deposition techniques.