MATERIALS FORUM(No.2008-13)
　
学术报告题目：515 Million years of reflecting optics: structural colour in nature

演讲人：Prof. Andrew Parker
　　　　Zoology Department, The Natural History Museum, London, UK.
　　　　Green College, University of Oxford, UK.

日期：2008-05-19（星期一）

时间：10:00 – 11:30

地点：材料科学与工程学院闵行校区
　　　金属基复合材料国家重点实验室材料D楼312 室

邀请人：张荻 教授
联系方式：34202634
     
Abstract

　　Three centuries of research, beginning with Hooke and Newton, have revealed a diversity of optical devices at the sub-micron scale in nature. These include 1D multilayer reflectors and diffraction gratings, with various nano-architectures. In 2000 the first photonic crystal was realized in animals, and since then the scientific effort in this subject has accelerated. Now we know of a variety of 2D and 3D photonic crystals in nature, including opal and inverse opal but also some designs not encountered previously in physics. Hence there is potential for optical biomimetics – the extraction of good design from nature.

　　One or two biomimetic successes have resulted from making direct analogues of nature’s reflectors and antireflectors already, using current engineering methods. However, recent collaborations between biologists, physicists, engineers, chemists and material scientists carry new expectations. This talk will review the past and current work on the biomimetics of optical nano-structures, in addition to revealing the diversity of optical reflectors found in nature, including those found in fossils up to 515 million years old.

　　An alternative approach to making nature’s reflectors will be considered, exploiting the fact that the animals or plants make them efficiently themselves. Therefore we can let nature manufacture the devices for us via cell culture techniques.

　　Current work in this area centres on butterfly scales and diatoms. The butterfly cells that make the scales are identified in chrysalises, dissected and plated out. Then the individual cells are separated, kept alive in culture and prompted to manufacture scales through the addition of growth hormones. Single-celled diatoms build photonic devices directly in 3D and carry the added advantage of exponential growth in numbers - each individual can give rise to 100 million descendents in a month. All of these photonic devices are made under mild physiological conditions, and so carry great potential for the optical engineer.