Butterflies: inspiration for solar cells and sunlight water-splitting catalysts

Abstract

Solar cells and photocatalysts to yield hydrogen are two significant strategies for taking advantage of clean and sustainable solar energy, and their light manipulation and harvesting ability will play a dominant role in their conversion efficiencies. Butterflies demonstrate their brilliant colors due to their wonderful skills of light manipulation, originating intrinsically from their elaborate architectures. We review the inspiration of butterflies for solar cells and sunlight water-splitting catalysts, focusing on the nipple arrays in butterfly compound eyes, as well as ridge and hole arrays, and the photonic crystal structures in butterfly wing scales. After giving a brief introduction to the typical architectures, we reveal the physical principles lying behind antireflection of compound eyes and black scales and iridescence of wing scales, respective prototypes are extracted and highlighted for the design and fabrication of solar cells and sunlight water-splitting catalysts. We conclude by reviewing the prospects for the integration of these prototypes and the appropriate materials for solar energy, which is the product of an intimate conversation between humanity and nature, as well as close cooperation between scientists from diverse fields.

Detection of glucose with a lamellar-ridge architectured gold modified electrode

“…So manipulating these nanograin building blocks into three-dimensional architecture and optimizing the mass transport process is highly required in order to enhance and even modulate the sensing performance [23,24] Various efforts, such as electrostatic interactions and asymmetric functionalization of nanoparticle surfaces [25][26][27], have been devoted to assemble individual particles into controllable architectures with limited success. In contrast, biological systems from nature form sophisticated configurations from macro-, micro-to nano-sizes which provide a large structural pool for architecture design [28]. Recent biotemplated and biomimetic strategies include using DNA [27], bacteria [29], virus cages [30], or ordered protein assemblies [31] have been utilized to synthesize and assemble metal nanograin architectures; however, those biological templates are easily curved or agglomerated themselves [32].…”

Theoretical and experimental analysis of the structural pattern responsible for the iridescence of Morpho butterflies

“…Recently, the same authors were inspired by the Morpho butterfly to design an artificial thermal sensor with high sensitivity and spatial resolution [10]. Furthermore, the Morpho butterfly architecture inspirited researchers to enhance the efficiency of solar cells [11][12][13]. It is commonly believed that the multilayer interference from the stack of lamellaes of regular periodic ridges on the scales ( Fig.…”

“…1(a)) and developed fabrication methods to replicate their design for various applications [7][8][9][10][11]. Potyrailo et al [9], for example, revealed that the optical response of the nano-scale structures of the Morpho butterfly changes for different vapors.…”

Enhancing light trapping of macroporous silicon by alkaline etching: application for the fabrication of black Si nanospike arrays

“…[1][2][3][4][5] It is known that enhanced light absorption can arise from nano-and microstructured Si surfaces that induce respectively a smooth transition of refractive index or multiple internal reflections. 1,4,6,7 In this context, top down micro-and nanostructuration of mono-or polycrystalline Si surfaces is highly appealing for boosting photon absorption and enlarging surface areas while conserving the properties of bulk Si. The fabrication of structured and highly absorbing Si, referred as Black Si (BSi), is, therefore, a very active research topic in materials with applications for renewable energy and photonics [1][2][3][4][8][9][10] and also, as recently demonstrated, for designing efficient surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) 11 surfaces or biomimetic antibacterial materials 12 .…”