Infrared Detection Based on Localized Modification of Morpho Butterfly Wings

Abstract

Inspired by butterflies an advanced detection and sensing system is developed. The hierarchical nanoarchitecture of Morpho butterfly wings is shown to facilitate the selective modification of such a structure, which results in a sensitive infrared response. These findings offer a new path both for detecting infrared photons and for generating nanostructured bimaterial systems for high-performance sensing platforms.

Reversible thermochromic response based on photonic crystal structure in butterfly wing

“…These functions originated from well-defined physical properties such as high levels of sensitivity of reflectance/transmittance [6,7]. The bioinspired materials based on butterfly wing PC structure have been proposed as next-generation materials, such as waveguides [8], dye-sensitized solar cells [9], gas response [10,11], photo trappers [12], infrared detectors [13,14], pH sensors [4], flat-panel displays [15], and photothermal materials [16,17]. Nature is a perfect and great art gallery of new ideas and inspirations for designing and fabricating new PC structure, because the fittest surviving creatures evolved through brutal evolution and natural selection from one generation to another.…”

“…It was found that the reflectance spectra curve of the samples would be changed, when the ambient temperature was changed by infrared radiation. And better properties were achieved through depositing a layer of gold (Au) coating on butterfly wing [14]. Temperature responsivity of poly(Nisopropylacrylamide)-co-acrylic acid was also used to combine with the butterfly structure.…”

“…Unfortunately, it is difficult to make the sample more visually distinct with photonic-sensing materials. The optical response in these bio-inspired materials mainly resulted from thermal expansion [13,14], while expansion was restricted by limited thermal expansion coefficients [21]. Thus, the requirement for new thermal sensors based on optical signal is sensitivity.…”

“…Thus, the requirement for new thermal sensors based on optical signal is sensitivity. The existing photonic-sensing material inspired by butterfly can only achieve a little wavelength response [22] or intensity response [13,14] without changing color. New responsive mechanism is designed in this paper.…”

Fabrication of hierarchical photonic nanostructures inspired by Morpho butterflies utilizing laser interference lithography

“…Evolutionary optimized scales of the famous Morpho butterfly, for example, give at the same time a strong blue coloration [27][28][29] and make the wing hydrophobic [30]. It has been demonstrated that by mimicking such structures it is possible to outperform existing photonic vapor sensors [31] and thermal sensors [32,33] in sensitivity and spatial resolution. Furthermore, butterflies inspired the development of nanostructures enhancing the efficiency of solar cells and water-splitting [34].…”