Iridescence: views from many angles

Iridescence: views from many angles.

Iridescent colours have been fascinating to humans throughout history; they are flashy, shimmering, dynamic, and examples surround us, from the commonly seen iridescent sheen of oily street puddles to the exotic, gaudy displays of birds-of-paradise featured in nature documentaries. Iridescent colours and the structures that produce them have unique properties in comparison with other types of c...

Tackling obesity from many angles.

The different views from small angles.

T he small-angle scattering of xrays or neutrons from proteins in solution can provide important information about the structure of the protein and the nature of interactions or distance correlations among the protein molecules (1, 2). The former is encoded in the form factor [P(q)], and the latter in the structure factor [S(q)]. These functions are of great interest to the structural biology c...

Iridescence: a functional perspective.

In animals, iridescence is generated by the interaction of light with biological tissues that are nanostructured to produce thin films or diffraction gratings. Uniquely among animal visual signals, the study of iridescent coloration contributes to biological and physical sciences by enhancing our understanding of the evolution of communication strategies, and by providing insights into physical...

Disorder and broad-angle iridescence from Morpho-inspired structures.

The ordered, lamellae-structured ridges on the wing scales of Morpho butterflies give rise to their striking blue iridescence by multilayer interference and grating diffraction. At the same time, the random offsets among the ridges broaden the directional multilayer reflection peaks and the grating diffraction peaks that the color appears the same at various viewing angles, contrary to the very...