Biomimetic Pieris rapae’s Nanostructure and Its Use as a Simple Sucrose Sensor

Micromachines

David Bonzon²  Rodrigo Martinez-Duarte¹  Philippe Renaud² 

[1] Mechanical Engineering Department, Clemson University, 250 Fluor Daniel, Clemson, SC 29634, USA; E-Mails:;Laboratoire de Microsystèmes LMIS4, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Station 17, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland; E-Mail:

关键词: biomimetic;    Pieris rapae;    electrospraying;    SU-8;    mie scattering;    refractive index sensing;   

DOI  :  10.3390/mi5020216

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Biomimetics often provides efficient ways to create a product incorporating novel properties. Here we present the replication of the Pieris rapae butterfly optical structure. This butterfly has white wings with black spots. The white coloration is produced by light scattering on pterin beads ranging from 100 to 500 nm whereas black spots correspond to areas without pterin beads, thus revealing a highly pigmented layer underneath. In order to mimic the butterfly wing structure, we deposited SU-8 beads produced by electrospraying on a black absorbing layer made of black SU-8. We thereby replicated the optical effect observed on Pieris rapae. Additional experiments showed that the white coloration replication is a structural color. Finally, we further demonstrate that these optical engineered surfaces can be used for sucrose sensing in the range of 1 g/L to 250 g/L.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.