Structural Coloration

The natural world is a colorful environment. Stunning displays of coloration have evolved throughout nature to optimize camouflage, warning, and communication. These stunning visual effects and remarkable dynamic properties are often caused by an intricate structural design at the nano- and microscale. To better understand and optimize these structural designs, we investigate the structure of birds and other animals using various microscopy techniques.

In addition,  we use colloidal self-assembly methods to create materials and surfaces with defined nanostructural and hierarchical architectures that mimic the remarkable optical effects found in nature. Our research focuses on structure formation, material composition, integration of absorbers and scalability. In collaboration with the Stingl group, we use mathematical structure optimization to identify ideal arrangements to create colloidal photonic crystals with maximal chroma.

We also utilize the optical response of colloidal particles arranging in well-ordered crystal grains to study the dynamic process of self-assembly in the formation of colloidal clusters. Light microscopes are usually not capable of “seeing” small nano particles, but their collective response to light gives live information about the state and orientation of crystals by their color appearance.