Rainbow peacock spiders inspire miniature super-iridescent optics
Abstract
Colour produced by wavelength-dependent light scattering is a key component of visual communication in nature and acts particularly strongly in visual signalling by structurally-coloured animals during courtship. Two miniature peacock spiders (Maratus robinsoni and M. chrysomelas) court females using tiny structured scales (~ 40 × 10 μm^2) that reflect the full visual spectrum. Using TEM and optical modelling, we show that the spiders' scales have 2D nanogratings on microscale 3D convex surfaces with at least twice the resolving power of a conventional 2D diffraction grating of the same period. Whereas the long optical path lengths required for light-dispersive components to resolve individual wavelengths constrain current spectrometers to bulky sizes, our nano-3D printed prototypes demonstrate that the design principle of the peacock spiders' scales could inspire novel, miniature light-dispersive components.
Additional Information
© 2017 The Author(s). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. We thank David Hill for commenting on the manuscript and Nathan Morehouse for the peacock spider vision discussion before submission. This research was funded by the National Science Foundation (IOS-1257809, T.A.B.), Air Force Office of Scientific Research (FA9550-16-1-0331, M.D.S.; FA9550-15-1-0068, D.G.S.; FA9550-10-1-0555, D.D.D.), Human Frontier Science Program (RGY-0083, M.D.S.), Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (G007177N, M.D.S.), The Scripps Institution of Oceanography Biomimicry for Emerging Science and Technology Initiative (D.D.D.) and The University of Akron Biomimicry Research and Innovation Center (B.-K.H.). B.-K.H. is supported by The Sherwin-Williams Company under a Biomimicry Fellowship. Author Contributions: T.A.B., M.D.S., and B.-K.H. conceived research, and wrote the initial manuscript. B.-K.H. designed experiments, performed microscopy, and analysed data. R.H.S. performed optical modelling, simulations, and analysed data. D.G.S. performed imaging scatterometry. J.C.O. collected and documented spiders. M.C.A. and D.D.D. performed hyperspectral Imaging. Y.L. and Y.-F.L. performed two-photon nanolithography and prototype characterization. T.A.B. and M.D.S. provided scientific leadership to B.-K.H. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript at all stages. The authors declare no competing financial interests.Attached Files
Published - s41467-017-02451-x.pdf
Supplemental Material - 41467_2017_2451_MOESM1_ESM.pdf
Supplemental Material - 41467_2017_2451_MOESM2_ESM.pdf
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Additional details
- PMCID
- PMC5741626
- Eprint ID
- 84031
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20180102-095000148
- IOS-1257809
- NSF
- FA9550-16-1-0331
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR)
- FA9550-15-1-0068
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR)
- FA9550-10-1-0555
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR)
- RGY-0083
- Human Frontier Science Program
- G007177N
- Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (FWO)
- Scripps Institution of Oceanography
- University of Akron
- Sherwin-Williams Company
- Created
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2018-01-02Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2022-03-18Created from EPrint's last_modified field