Circular dichroism in biological hotonic Crystals and Cubic Chiral Nets

Saba, M., Thiel, M., Turner, M.D., Hyde, S.T., Gu, M., Grosse-Brauckmann, K., Neshev, D.N., Mecke, K. and Schröder-Turk, G.E. (2011) Circular dichroism in biological hotonic Crystals and Cubic Chiral Nets. Physical Review Letters, 106 (10).

Abstract

Nature provides impressive examples of chiral photonic crystals, with the notable example of the cubic so-called srs network (the label for the chiral degree-three network modeled on SrSi2) or gyroid structure realized in wing scales of several butterfly species. By a circular polarization analysis of the band structure of such networks, we demonstrate strong circular dichroism effects: The butterfly srs microstructure, of cubic I4132 symmetry, shows significant circular dichroism for blue to ultraviolet light, that warrants a search for biological receptors sensitive to circular polarization. A derived synthetic structure based on four like-handed silicon srs nets exhibits a large circular polarization stop band of a width exceeding 30%. These findings offer design principles for chiral photonic devices.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publisher:	American Physical Society
Copyright:	© 2011 American Physical Society
URI:	http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/30611

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