LAUSR.org creates dashboard-style pages of related content for over 1.5 million academic articles. Sign Up to like articles & get recommendations!

Optically ambidextrous circularly polarized reflection from the chiral cuticle of the scarab beetle Chrysina resplendens

Photo by bermixstudio from unsplash

The evolution of structural colour mechanisms in biological systems has given rise to many interesting optical effects in animals and plants. The instance of the scarab beetle Chrysina resplendens is… Click to show full abstract

The evolution of structural colour mechanisms in biological systems has given rise to many interesting optical effects in animals and plants. The instance of the scarab beetle Chrysina resplendens is particularly distinctive. Its exoskeleton has a bright, golden appearance and reflects both right-handed and left-handed circularly polarized light concurrently. The chiral nanostructure responsible for these properties is a helicoid, in which birefringent dielectric planes are assembled with an incremental rotation. This study correlates details of the beetle's circularly polarized reflectance spectra directly with physical aspects of its structural morphology. Electron micrography is used to identify and measure the physical dimensions of the key constituent components. These include a chiral multilayer configuration comprising two chirped, left-handed helicoids that are separated by a birefringent retarder. A scattering matrix technique is used to simulate the system's optical behaviour in which the roles of each component of the morphological substructure are elucidated by calculation of the fields throughout its depth.

Keywords: optically ambidextrous; circularly polarized; chrysina resplendens; ambidextrous circularly; scarab beetle; beetle chrysina

Journal Title: Journal of The Royal Society Interface
Year Published: 2017

Link to full text (if available)


Share on Social Media:                               Sign Up to like & get
recommendations!

Related content

More Information              News              Social Media              Video              Recommended



                Click one of the above tabs to view related content.