Making the Invisible Visible — Unveiling the Complex Architectures Behind Butterfly Structural Colors

In biological systems, all that glitters is structural — the colors of the shining scarab beetle or shimmering peacock feather are made not by pigments, but by photonic structures invisible to the eye. Butterflies are no exception, their wings adorned with a myriad of such structures spanning the visible electromagnetic spectrum and beyond. Broadband silver and gold reflectance, which typically requires a multilayered system on the order of hundreds of micrometers thick, in butterflies takes the form of an ultrathin reflector of only one or two micrometers which makes use of spatial color mixing. While a previously described undulatory thin film–type reflector is apparently convergently evolved by many butterfly families, this thesis also describes novel reflector types in lycaenid and riodinid butterflies which make use of proximo-distal color mixing.As the butterfly unit of color is the pixel-like scale, the nanometer-level precision required for structural color must be achieved uniformly not only within the scale but across the wing in many scales, each of which is produced by a single cell. In hopes of furthering study of how such complex and precise structures develop within the cell, two 3D SEM techniques and their potential applications in butterfly tissues are described. In education and communicating to broader audiences, the intersections of art and science are valuable to inspire and spark wonder. Although butterfly structural color is the subject for my work, a variety of science-inspired art is discussed, the underlying principles of which apply more broadly.

Author

• Ren, Anna

Language

• en

Keyword

• structural color
• butterfly
• science art
• science communication
• 3D SEM

Date created

• 2021

Type of Work

• Master's Thesis

License

• All rights reserved

Rights statement

• In Copyright

GW Unit

• Biological Sciences

Degree

• M.S.

Advisor

• Martin, Arnaud
• Scully, Tara A

Committee Member(s)

• Brantner, Christine A

Persistent URL

•  https://scholarspace.library.gwu.edu/etd/p8418n96x