NEWYORK: Harvard researchers have taken inspiration from ‘colour-changing’ wings of a butterfly to develop an artificial photonic material that is difficult to recreate and can help produce counterfeit-proof banknotes.

Researchers were inspired by the male Pierella luna butterfly of Latin America that uses its wings to perform an advanced optical trick known as reverse colour diffraction to attract a mate. Owing to the microstructure of its wings — made up of tiny scales curled slightly upward at the end to diffract light — the butterfly appears to change colour when viewed from different angles.

Researchers have now figured out a way to use artificial photonic materials to mimic the insect.

It's the new photonic material's microstructure that could make it valuable for a range of applications. The superthin, transparent material consists of an array of microscopic plates, or scales, that mimic those that make up the Pierella luna's wing. Each plate is about 18 micrometers tall about one-fifth the diameter of a human hair and each features a scalloped, or ridged, edge. The ridges on each plate look like tiny lines running through the material and are spaced about 500 nanometers apart.

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