Mining the Smartness of Insect Ultrastructures for Advanced Imaging and Illumination

Abstract

Biological wonders, found in insects such as antireflecting moth eyes, compound eyes in a honey bee, firefly lanterns, and iridescent butterfly wings, inspire human beings for advanced light imaging and illumination technologies. Dazzling advances of micro- and nanofabrication technologies allow insect-inspired structures, for example, artificial compound eyes with a wide field of view and low aberration, bioinspired light-emitting diode lenses, and structural coloration templates, featuring miniaturization. Besides, plasmonics and metamaterials offer an unprecedented approach that overcomes the diffraction limit and unveils unknown optical phenomena in ultrastructures inspired by insects. Here, insect-inspired photonic structures for light imaging, light extraction, and structural coloration are reviewed, and photonic functions and structure fabrications inspired by insects that can be applied in advanced imaging and illumination applications are discussed.