Ultra-antireflective synthetic brochosomes

Shikuan Yang (), Nan Sun, Birgitt Boschitsch Stogin, Jing Wang, Yu Huang and Tak-Sing Wong ()
Additional contact information
Shikuan Yang: The Pennsylvania State University
Nan Sun: The Pennsylvania State University
Birgitt Boschitsch Stogin: The Pennsylvania State University
Jing Wang: The Pennsylvania State University
Yu Huang: The Pennsylvania State University
Tak-Sing Wong: The Pennsylvania State University

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract 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.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-01404-8 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:8:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-017-01404-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-01404-8

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().