scholarly journals Bioinspired Microstructures Polymer Surfaces with Antireflective Properties

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
Alexandre Emmanuel Wetzel ◽  
Ada-Ioana Bunea ◽  
Einstom Engay ◽  
Nikolaj Kofoed Mandsberg ◽  
Nuria del Castillo Iniesta ◽  
...  

Antireflective (AR) coatings have been around for more than a century, with the simplest form dating back to Lord Rayleigh’s 1886 tarnished glass. Different approaches to obtaining AR coatings exploit index-matching, interference, or absorbing phenomena. In 2002, a novel super black surface was developed by Brown et al. at the National Physical Laboratory in the UK and soon gained significant interest among both academia and industry. Since then, scientists have been competing in a race to produce the blackest material. Although extremely valuable, existing solutions usually require complicated fabrication procedures and post-application treatments. Structural colors are ubiquitous in nature, so an interesting approach to developing AR coatings is biomimicry. Moth-eye structures are well-known for their AR properties, and they have been successfully replicated using micro- and nanofabrication methods and employed as AR coatings. Interestingly, recent studies from Harvard University highlight two types of microstructures that lead to super black coloring in nature, i.e., barbule microstructures on birds of paradise and cuticular bumps on peacock spiders. These publications provide detailed information on the shape of such natural super black microstructures and mechanisms behind the observed super black effect. Although the replication of such structures should prove extremely valuable, it has not yet been demonstrated. In this paper, we present the fabrication and characterization of AR microarrays inspired by the peacock spiders’ super black structures encountered in nature. Fabrication is done by super-resolution three-dimensional (3D) printing using two-photon polymerization of an acrylic resin. The optical properties of microstructure arrays with different shape design parameters are then characterized using a homemade reflectance/transmittance setup, which allows wavelength-dependent investigations in the ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared ranges. The influence of the shape design parameters on the optical properties of the microarrays is then discussed with experimental measurements as well as simulations.

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 379-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. García Muñoz

AbstractA significant body of work on simulating the remote appearance of Earth-like exoplanets has been done over the last decade. The research is driven by the prospect of characterizing habitable planets beyond the Solar System in the near future. In this work, I present a method to produce the disk-integrated signature of planets that are described in their three-dimensional complexity, i.e. with both horizontal and vertical variations in the optical properties of their envelopes. The approach is based on Pre-conditioned Backward Monte Carlo integration of the vector Radiative Transport Equation and yields the full Stokes vector for outgoing reflected radiation. The method is demonstrated through selected examples inspired by published work at wavelengths from the visible to the near infrared and terrestrial prescriptions of both cloud and surface albedo maps. I explore the performance of the method in terms of computational time and accuracy. A clear strength of this approach is that its computational cost does not appear to be significantly affected by non-uniformities in the planet optical properties. Earth's simulated appearance is strongly dependent on wavelength; both brightness and polarization undergo diurnal variations arising from changes in the planet cover, but polarization yields a better insight into variations with phase angle. There is partial cancellation of the polarized signal from the northern and southern hemispheres so that the outgoing polarization vector lies preferentially either in the plane parallel or perpendicular to the planet scattering plane, also for non-uniform cloud and albedo properties and various levels of absorption within the atmosphere. The evaluation of circular polarization is challenging; a number of one-photon experiments of 109 or more is needed to resolve hemispherically integrated degrees of circular polarization of a few times 10−5. Last, I introduce brightness curves of Earth obtained with one of the Messenger cameras at three wavelengths (0.48, 0.56 and 0.63 μm) during a flyby in 2005. The light curves show distinct structure associated with the varying aspect of the Earth's visible disk (phases of 98–107°) as the planet undergoes a full 24 h rotation; the structure is reasonably well reproduced with model simulations.


1999 ◽  
Vol 75 (7) ◽  
pp. 905-907 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susumu Noda ◽  
Noritsugu Yamamoto ◽  
Hideaki Kobayashi ◽  
Makoto Okano ◽  
Katsuhiro Tomoda

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Bitelli ◽  
P. Conte ◽  
T. Csoknyai ◽  
E. Mandanici

The management of an urban context in a Smart City perspective requires the development of innovative projects, with new applications in multidisciplinary research areas. They can be related to many aspects of city life and urban management: fuel consumption monitoring, energy efficiency issues, environment, social organization, traffic, urban transformations, etc. Geomatics, the modern discipline of gathering, storing, processing, and delivering digital spatially referenced information, can play a fundamental role in many of these areas, providing new efficient and productive methods for a precise mapping of different phenomena by traditional cartographic representation or by new methods of data visualization and manipulation (e.g. three-dimensional modelling, data fusion, etc.). The technologies involved are based on airborne or satellite remote sensing (in visible, near infrared, thermal bands), laser scanning, digital photogrammetry, satellite positioning and, first of all, appropriate sensor integration (online or offline). The aim of this work is to present and analyse some new opportunities offered by Geomatics technologies for a Smart City management, with a specific interest towards the energy sector related to buildings. Reducing consumption and CO2 emissions is a primary objective to be pursued for a sustainable development and, in this direction, an accurate knowledge of energy consumptions and waste for heating of single houses, blocks or districts is needed. A synoptic information regarding a city or a portion of a city can be acquired through sensors on board of airplanes or satellite platforms, operating in the thermal band. A problem to be investigated at the scale A problem to be investigated at the scale of the whole urban context is the Urban Heat Island (UHI), a phenomenon known and studied in the last decades. UHI is related not only to sensible heat released by anthropic activities, but also to land use variations and evapotranspiration reduction. The availability of thermal satellite sensors is fundamental to carry out multi-temporal studies in order to evaluate the dynamic behaviour of the UHI for a city. Working with a greater detail, districts or single buildings can be analysed by specifically designed airborne surveys. The activity has been recently carried out in the EnergyCity project, developed in the framework of the Central Europe programme established by UE. As demonstrated by the project, such data can be successfully integrated in a GIS storing all relevant data about buildings and energy supply, in order to create a powerful geospatial database for a Decision Support System assisting to reduce energy losses and CO2 emissions. Today, aerial thermal mapping could be furthermore integrated by terrestrial 3D surveys realized with Mobile Mapping Systems through multisensor platforms comprising thermal camera/s, laser scanning, GPS, inertial systems, etc. In this way the product can be a true 3D thermal model with good geometric properties, enlarging the possibilities in respect to conventional qualitative 2D images with simple colour palettes. Finally, some applications in the energy sector could benefit from the availability of a true 3D City Model, where the buildings are carefully described through three-dimensional elements. The processing of airborne LiDAR datasets for automated and semi-automated extraction of 3D buildings can provide such new generation of 3D city models.


Nanomaterials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 956
Author(s):  
Philipp Taus ◽  
Adrian Prinz ◽  
Heinz D. Wanzenboeck ◽  
Patrick Schuller ◽  
Anton Tsenov ◽  
...  

Biomimetic structures such as structural colors demand a fabrication technology of complex three-dimensional nanostructures on large areas. Nanoimprint lithography (NIL) is capable of large area replication of three-dimensional structures, but the master stamp fabrication is often a bottleneck. We have demonstrated different approaches allowing for the generation of sophisticated undercut T-shaped masters for NIL replication. With a layer-stack of phase transition material (PTM) on poly-Si, we have demonstrated the successful fabrication of a single layer undercut T-shaped structure. With a multilayer-stack of silicon oxide on silicon, we have shown the successful fabrication of a multilayer undercut T-shaped structures. For patterning optical lithography, electron beam lithography and nanoimprint lithography have been compared and have yielded structures from 10 µm down to 300 nm. The multilayer undercut T-shaped structures closely resemble the geometry of the surface of a Morpho butterfly, and may be used in future to replicate structural colors on artificial surfaces.


Micromachines ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 637
Author(s):  
Hongliang Li ◽  
Zewen Lin ◽  
Yanqing Guo ◽  
Jie Song ◽  
Rui Huang ◽  
...  

The influence of N incorporation on the optical properties of Si-rich a-SiCx films deposited by very high-frequency plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (VHF PECVD) was investigated. The increase in N content in the films was found to cause a remarkable enhancement in photoluminescence (PL). Relative to the sample without N incorporation, the sample incorporated with 33% N showed a 22-fold improvement in PL. As the N content increased, the PL band gradually blueshifted from the near-infrared to the blue region, and the optical bandgap increased from 2.3 eV to 5.0 eV. The enhancement of PL was suggested mainly from the effective passivation of N to the nonradiative recombination centers in the samples. Given the strong PL and wide bandgap of the N incorporated samples, they were used to further design an anti-counterfeiting label.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shanshan Chen ◽  
Zhiguang Liu ◽  
Huifeng Du ◽  
Chengchun Tang ◽  
Chang-Yin Ji ◽  
...  

AbstractKirigami, with facile and automated fashion of three-dimensional (3D) transformations, offers an unconventional approach for realizing cutting-edge optical nano-electromechanical systems. Here, we demonstrate an on-chip and electromechanically reconfigurable nano-kirigami with optical functionalities. The nano-electromechanical system is built on an Au/SiO2/Si substrate and operated via attractive electrostatic forces between the top gold nanostructure and bottom silicon substrate. Large-range nano-kirigami like 3D deformations are clearly observed and reversibly engineered, with scalable pitch size down to 0.975 μm. Broadband nonresonant and narrowband resonant optical reconfigurations are achieved at visible and near-infrared wavelengths, respectively, with a high modulation contrast up to 494%. On-chip modulation of optical helicity is further demonstrated in submicron nano-kirigami at near-infrared wavelengths. Such small-size and high-contrast reconfigurable optical nano-kirigami provides advanced methodologies and platforms for versatile on-chip manipulation of light at nanoscale.


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