Biomimicry of optical microstructures of Papilio palinurus

¹ School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Georgia Institute of Technology - Atlanta, GA, USA
² School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology - Atlanta, GA, USA
³ Center for Advanced Research on Optical Microscopy, Georgia Institute of Technology - Atlanta, GA, USA

^a jung.park@mse.gatech.edu
^b chris.summers@mse.gatech.edu
^c mohan@mse.gatech.edu

Received: 5 October 2010
Accepted: 20 December 2010

Abstract

The brilliant coloration of animals in nature is sometimes based on their structure rather than on pigments. The green colour on the wings of a butterfly Papilio palinurus originates from the hierarchical microstructure of individual wing scales that are tiled on the wing. The hierarchical structure gives rise to two coloured reflections of visible light, blue and yellow which when additively mixed, produce the perception of green colour on the wing scales. We used breath figure templated assembly as the starting point for the structure and, combining it with atomic layer deposition for the multilayers necessary for the production of interference colors, we have faithfully mimicked the structure and the optical effects found on the wing scale of the butterfly Papilio palinurus.