Cellulose bio-inspired hierarchical structures

摘要

Nature's most vivid colours rely on the ability to produce complex and hierarchical photonic structures with lattice constants on the order of the wavelength of visible radiation. [1]. A recurring strategy design that is found both in the animal and plant kingdoms for producing such effects is the helicoidal architecture [2,3]- In such structures, a series of individual nano-fibers (made of natural polymers as cellulose and chitin) are arranged parallel to each other in stacked planes. When distance between such planes is comparable to the wavelength of light, a strong polarised, colour selective response can be obtained [4]. These helicoidal multilayers are generally structured on the micro-scale and macroscopic scale, giving rise to hierarchical structures with a complex optical response.