Natural photosynthetic nanostructures as a blueprint for bio-inspired organic photonics

Photonic crystals are nanostructured systems which manipulate and confine light at the nanoscale. However, significant hurdles in their fabrication remain, delaying the progress toward large scale commercial applications. Interestingly, nature has been developing these structures for aeons in animal...

ver descrição completa

Detalhes bibliográficos
Autor: Palhinha Castillo, Miguel Augusto
Formato: tesis doctoral
Fecha de publicación:2023
País:España
Recursos:Universidad de Santiago de Compostela (USC)
Repositorio:Minerva. Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Santiago de Compostela
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:minerva.usc.gal:10347/30576
Acesso em linha:http://hdl.handle.net/10347/30576
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palavra-chave:Materias::Investigación::22 Física::2202 Electromagnetismo::220207 Interacción de ondas electromagnéticas con la materia
Materias::Investigación::22 Física::2209 Óptica::220914 Propiedades ópticas de los sólidos
Materias::Investigación::22 Física::2209 Óptica::220921 Espectroscopia
Descrição
Resumo:Photonic crystals are nanostructured systems which manipulate and confine light at the nanoscale. However, significant hurdles in their fabrication remain, delaying the progress toward large scale commercial applications. Interestingly, nature has been developing these structures for aeons in animals, insects and even plants. In this dissertation, we start by studying the natural photonic structure known as iridoplasts, a specialised iridescent photosynthetic system. We show that this biological organism could be using its photonic properties to mould the absorption of light. We fabricate soft matter photonic structures inspired by iridoplasts. The materials and fabrication methods used could help overcome some of the hurdles of the commonly used fabrication techniques for photonic crystals.