Breeding Polyommatus icarus Serves as a Large-Scale and Environmentally Friendly Source of Precisely Tuned Photonic Nanoarchitectures.

ABSTRACT: The colour of the butterfly wing serves as an important sexual and species-specific signal. Some species produce structural colouration by developing wing scales with photonic nanoarchitectures. These nanostructures are highly conservative, allowing only a ±10 nm peak wavelength deviation in the reflectance spectra of the blue structural colour in natural Common Blue (Polyommatus icarus) populations. They are promising templates of future artificial photonic materials and can be used in potential applications, too. In this work, we present methodology and infrastructure for breeding laboratory populations of Common Blue as a cost-effective and environmentally friendly source of nanostructures. Our technology enables the production of approximately 7500 wing samples, equivalent to 0.

SUBMITTER: Piszter G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10455773 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature