Department of Cell Physiology and Metabolism, Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, CMU, Rue Michel Servet 1, CH-1211 Geneva, Switzerland.
Zoological Museum of the Lomonosov Moscow State University, Bol'shaya Nikitskaya str. 2, Moscow 125009, Russian Federation.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2021 May 26;13(20):23481-23488. doi: 10.1021/acsami.1c05049. Epub 2021 May 11.
Light plays paramount functions for living beings in nature. In addition to color, the polarization of light is used by many animals for navigation and communication. In this study, we describe the light polarizing role of special nanostructures coating cuticular surfaces of diverse arthropods. These structures are built as parallel nanoscale ridges covering the eyes of the sunlight-navigating spider and of the water pond-swarming black fly , as well as the light-emitting abdominal lantern of the firefly . Exact topography and dimensions of the parallel nanoridges provide different light polarizing efficiencies and wavelength sensitivity. Optical modeling confirms that the nanoscale ridges are responsible for the spectral polarization dependency. Co-opting from our recent work on the self-assembly of corneal nanostructures, we engineer arthropod-like parallel nanoridges on artificial surfaces, which recapitulate the light polarization effects. Our work highlights the fundamental importance of nanocoatings in arthropods for the light polarization management and provides a new biomimetic approach to produce ordered nanostructures under mild conditions.
光在自然界中对生物起着至关重要的作用。除了颜色外，光的偏振也被许多动物用于导航和交流。在这项研究中，我们描述了覆盖各种节肢动物表皮的特殊纳米结构在光偏振中的作用。这些结构被设计成覆盖在阳光导航蜘蛛和水生池塘群集黑蝇的眼睛上的平行纳米级脊，以及萤火虫发光的腹部灯笼。精确的平行纳米脊的形貌和尺寸提供了不同的光偏振效率和波长敏感性。光学建模证实，纳米脊是光谱偏振依赖性的原因。从我们最近关于角膜纳米结构自组装的工作中得到启发，我们在人工表面上设计出类似于节肢动物的平行纳米脊，重现了光偏振效应。我们的工作强调了纳米涂层在节肢动物中对光偏振管理的重要性，并为在温和条件下产生有序纳米结构提供了一种新的仿生方法。
