Spectral selectivity of 3D magnetophotonic crystal film fabricated from single butterfly wing scales

Abstract

3D magnetophotonic crystal (3D-MPC) film is an excellent platform for tailoring the magneto-optical response of magnetic materials. However, its fabrication is a great challenge due to the limitation of commonly used artificial synthesis methods. Inspired by the unique structures of biospecies, we hereby manipulate the pristine single wing scales of Morpho didius precisely and successfully fabricate Fe3O4 films with photonic structure. The synthesis strategy involves the fabrication of Fe2O3 film from a single wing scale using an improved sol-gel method followed by a subsequent reduction. The intrinsic hierarchical photonic structures as well as the anisotropic optical properties of the pristine butterfly wing scale have been retained in the obtained Fe2O3 and Fe3O4 films. When investigated under an external magnetic field, a spectral blue shift about 43 nm is observed in the designated orientation of the Fe3O4 film, which is useful for the design and creation of novel magnetic-optical modulator devices. Furthermore, these single scales can be used as building blocks to fabricate designable and more complicated assembled nano systems. This biomimetic technique combined with the variety of structures of butterfly wing scales provides an effective approach to produce magneto-photonic films with desired structure, paving a new way for theoretical research and practical applications.

Vapor Selectivity of a Natural Photonic Crystal to Binary and Tertiary Mixtures Containing Chemical Warfare Agent Simulants

“…In turn, each scale contains about 70 ridges, each ridge less than 1 µm in width and running parallel to other ridges the length of the scale. Though difficult to observe in the images, these ridges are known to be thicker at the base (800 nm) than at the top (400 nm) and, as shown in Figure 1c, form a tree-like structure with six to eight lamellae forming the branch-like structures normal to each side of the ridge center [34]. These lamellae run the length of each ridge and are about 80 nm thick with about 150 nm vertical spacing between each lamellae layer.…”

Artificial Structural Color Pixels: A Review

“…Furthermore, investigations on magnetophotonic composites and relevant devices [ 69 , 70 , 71 , 72 , 73 ] have drawn significant attention recently. Using a synthesis method which combines a sol-gel route followed by a reduction step, three dimensional network magnetophotonic crystals can be fabricated on Morpho butterfly wing templates [ 74 ].…”

An Ingenious Super Light Trapping Surface Templated from Butterfly Wing Scales

“…The colorful butterfly wing surface has been fabricated using soft lithography technique [ 28 ], low-temperature atomic layer deposition [ 29 ], colloidal self-assembly, sputtering and atomic layer deposition, even combining all these layer deposition techniques together [ 30 ]. Not only sorts of surface processing technology but also a variety of materials were employed to fabricate replicas of the multi-layered scales on the surface of butterfly wing, such as polyelectrolyte multilayer films [ 31 ], carbon nanotube [ 32 ], polypyrrole [ 33 ], oxidizing material include TiO 2 [ 34 ], Bi 2 WO 6 [ 35 ], Fe 3 O 4 [ 36 ], SnO 2 [ 19 ], and so on. Even so, exact replica of such biological structures by an artificial synthesis route are difficult; what is more, the existing studies about butterflies mainly focus on the structural colors, photonic crystal structures, and the replica of photonic structures in butterfly wings.…”