TY - JOUR
T1 - Ultra-antireflective synthetic brochosomes
AU - Yang, Shikuan
AU - Sun, Nan
AU - Stogin, Birgitt Boschitsch
AU - Wang, Jing
AU - Huang, Yu
AU - Wong, Tak Sing
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Josh Stapleton from Materials Characterization Laboratory and Leland Shawn Burghard at The Pennsylvania State University for the help with the optical measurements and the greenhouse management, respectively. We acknowledge funding support by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Award# D14AP00042 (materials and optical characterizations), the National Science Foundation CAREER Award# 1351462 (materials fabrication), Start-Up Fund from The Pennsylvania State University, and Wormley Family Early Career Professorship. Stogin acknowledges support from the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (Grant No.: DGE1255832). Publication of this article was funded in part by The Pennsylvania State University Libraries Open Access Publishing Fund. Part of the work was conducted at the Penn State node of the NSF-funded National Nanotechnology of Infrastructure Network.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 The Author(s).
PY - 2017/12/1
Y1 - 2017/12/1
N2 - Since the early discovery of the antireflection properties of insect compound eyes, new examples of natural antireflective coatings have been rare. Here, we report the fabrication and optical characterization of a biologically inspired antireflective surface that emulates the intricate surface architectures of leafhopper-produced brochosomes-soccer ball-like microscale granules with nanoscale indentations. Our method utilizes double-layer colloidal crystal templates in conjunction with site-specific electrochemical growth to create these structures, and is compatible with various materials including metals, metal oxides, and conductive polymers. These brochosome coatings (BCs) can be designed to exhibit strong omnidirectional antireflective performance of wavelengths from 250 to 2000 nm, comparable to the state-of-the-art antireflective coatings. Our results provide evidence for the use of brochosomes as a camouflage coating against predators of leafhoppers or their eggs. The discovery of the antireflective function of BCs may find applications in solar energy harvesting, imaging, and sensing devices.
AB - Since the early discovery of the antireflection properties of insect compound eyes, new examples of natural antireflective coatings have been rare. Here, we report the fabrication and optical characterization of a biologically inspired antireflective surface that emulates the intricate surface architectures of leafhopper-produced brochosomes-soccer ball-like microscale granules with nanoscale indentations. Our method utilizes double-layer colloidal crystal templates in conjunction with site-specific electrochemical growth to create these structures, and is compatible with various materials including metals, metal oxides, and conductive polymers. These brochosome coatings (BCs) can be designed to exhibit strong omnidirectional antireflective performance of wavelengths from 250 to 2000 nm, comparable to the state-of-the-art antireflective coatings. Our results provide evidence for the use of brochosomes as a camouflage coating against predators of leafhoppers or their eggs. The discovery of the antireflective function of BCs may find applications in solar energy harvesting, imaging, and sensing devices.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41467-017-01404-8
DO - 10.1038/s41467-017-01404-8
M3 - Article
C2 - 29101358
AN - SCOPUS:85032816733
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 8
JO - Nature communications
JF - Nature communications
IS - 1
M1 - 1285
ER -