Structural Diversity of Arthropod Biophotonic Nanostructures Spans Amphiphilic Phase-Space

作者：Saranathan Vinodkumar^*; Seago Ainsley E; Sandy Alec; Narayanan Suresh; Mochrie Simon G J; Dufresne Eric R; Cao Hui; Osuji Chinedum O; Prum Richard O

来源：Nano Letters, 2015, 15(6): 3735-3742.

DOI：10.1021/acs.nanolett.5b00201

• Biophotonic nanostructures
• structural colors
• iridescence
• self-assembly
• membrane-folding
• biomimetics

Many organisms, especially arthropods, produce vivid interference colors using diverse mesoscopic (100-350 nm) integumentary biophotonic nanostructures that are increasingly being investigated for technological applications. Despite a century of interest, precise structural knowledge of many biophotonic nanostructures and the mechanisms controlling their development remain tentative, when such knowledge can open novel biomimetic routes to facilely self-assemble tunable, multifunctional materials. Here, we use synchrotron small-angle X-ray scattering and electron microscopy to characterize the photonic nanostructure of 140 integumentary scales and setae from similar to 127 species of terrestrial arthropods in 85 genera from 5 orders. We report a rich nanostructural diversity, including triply periodic bicontinuous networks, close-packed spheres, inverse columnar, perforated lamellar, and disordered spongelike morphologies, commonly observed as stable phases of amphiphilic surfactants, block copolymer, and lyotropic lipid-water systems. Diverse arthropod lineages appear to have independently evolved to utilize the self-assembly of infolding lipid-bilayer membranes to develop biophotonic nanostructures that span the phase-space of amphiphilic morphologies, but at optical length scales.

• 出版日期2015-6