Nanostructured fibers as a versatile photonic platform: radiative cooling and waveguiding through transverse Anderson localization.

ABSTRACT: Broadband high reflectance in nature is often the result of randomly, three-dimensionally structured materials. This study explores unique optical properties associated with one-dimensional nanostructures discovered in silk cocoon fibers of the comet moth, Argema mittrei. The fibers are populated with a high density of air voids randomly distributed across the fiber cross-section but are invariant along the fiber. These filamentary air voids strongly scatter light in the solar spectrum. A single silk fiber measuring ~50 μm thick can reflect 66% of incoming solar radiation, and this, together with the fibers' high emissivity of 0.88 in the mid-infrared range, allows the cocoon to act as an efficient radiative-cooling device. Drawing inspiration from these natural radiative-cooling fibers, b

SUBMITTER: Shi NN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6107007 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature