Photonics effects. Photonic effects were first studied In 1887 by the English physicist Lord Rayleigh, whose claim to fame is his explanation (the first) of why the sky is blue.
Nano sculpture. This nano sculpture (inspired by Antonio Canova’s work in the Louvre, created between 1787 -1793) was photographed using the light properties of photonic crystals. A sculpture. It is the smallest human portraits ever created. The structure is created using a ground-breaking new 3D printing technology and a technique called Multiphoton Lithography. Ultimately these works are created using the physical phenomenon of two photon absorption. If you illuminate a light-sensitive polymer with Ultra Violet wavelengths, it solidifies wherever it was irradiated in a kind of crude lump. If however you use longer wavelength intense light, and focus it tightly through a microscope, something wonderful happens: at the focus point, the polymer absorbs TWO PHOTONS and responds as if it had been illuminated by UV light, namely it will solidify. This two photon absorption occurs only at the tiny focal point – basically a tiny 3D pixel (called a Voxel). The sculpture is then moved along fractionally by a computer controlled process and the next pixel is created. Slowly, over hours and hours the entire sculpture is assembled pixel by pixel and layer by layer. Website : http://www.jontyhurwitz.com/nano/
Photonic crystals Synthesis of Inverse Opal. Les cristaux photoniques sont des nanostructures périodiques de matériaux qui ont sur la propagation des photons les mêmes effets que les cristaux usuels ont sur celle des électrons : certaines longueurs d’onde peuvent se propager tandis que d’autres non. Selon que la périodicité existe le long d’un, de deux ou de trois axes, on qualifie le cristal d’uni-, de bi- ou de tridimensionnel. L’opale est le plus connu des cristaux photoniques naturels.
http://www.universalis.fr/encyclopedie/cristaux-photoniques/
Zoom into a Blue Morpho Butterfly. Les ailes des insectes présentent des structures, dites photoniques, qui contrôlent la propagation de la lumière. Les physiciens s’en inspirent pour élaborer de nouveaux matériaux. Le papillon Morpho Godarti est bleu à l’air pur (indice de réfraction n = 1), vert dans une vapeur d’acétone (n = 1,36) et marron clair dans une vapeur de trichloroéthylène (n = 1,48). La structure interne de l’aile intercale couches d’air et couches solides ; les vapeurs changent l’indice optique des couches d’air, qui modifie le spectre réfléchi par l’aile. Website : http://www.pourlascience.fr/ewb_pages/a/article-les-cristaux-photoniques-naturels-31294.php
