Biomimetic and Bioinspired Photonic Structures

A photonic crystal is a type of materials in which refractive index is periodically modulated on the scale of light wavelength, enabling it to control light, and is surprisingly widespread in nature. In designing and fabricating artificial photonic structure, nature has given us continuous inspiration. This review, starting from natural photonic structures, such as those existing in animals, plants and diatoms etc., presents a brief summary of recent progress on biomimetic and bioinspired photonic structures, including synthesis methods and potential applications.