Bioinspired Compound Eyes for Diffused Light-Harvesting Application

Abstract

Natural compound eyes endow arthropods with wide-field high-performance light-harvesting capability that enables them to capture prey and avoid natural enemies in dim light. Inspired by natural compound eyes, a curved artificial-compound-eye (cACE) photodetector for diffused light harvesting is proposed and fabricated, and its light-harvesting capability is systematically investigated. The cACE photodetector is fabricated by introducing a cACE as a light-harvesting layer on the surface of a silicon-based photodetector, with the cACE being prepared via planar artificial-compound-eye (pACE) template deformation. The distinctive geometric morphology of the as-prepared cACE effectively reduces its surface reflection and the dependence of the projected area on the incident light direction, thereby significantly improving the light-harvesting ability and output photocurrent of the silicon-based photodetector. Furthermore, the performances of cACE, pACE, and bare polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-attached photodetectors as diffused light detectors are investigated under different luminances. The cACE-photodetector output photocurrent is 1.395 and 1.29 times those of the bare PDMS-attached and pACE photodetectors, respectively. Moreover, this photodetector has a desirable geometric shape. Thus, the proposed cACE photodetector will facilitate development of high-performance photodetectors for luminance sensing.

CoOOH: Synthesis and Application in Alkaline Electrochemical Oxygen Evolution Reaction

“…This phenomenon has also been widely reported in the Co‐based pre‐catalyst systems. [ 45–48 ] Low crystallinity endows the prepared CoOOH with abundant vacancies and hydrophilic property, which are reported to be beneficial to OER activity.…”

“…[ 43 ] In the past decade, cobalt oxyhydroxides (CoOOH) have drawn much attention as the true active species for Co‐based OER catalysts, because plenty of Co‐based compounds are demonstrated to partially or fully convert to CoOOH after OER. [ 44–48 ] Therefore, understanding the structure‐performance relationship and catalytic mechanism of CoOOH is crucial for Co‐based OER catalysts, as it can guide the design of Co‐based materials toward OER. On the other hand, CoOOH can also be regarded as one kind of stable Co‐based OER catalyst with unique Co 3+ species and layered CoO 6 octahedron structure.…”

Enhanced photocatalytic degradation of organic contaminants in water by highly tunable surface microlenses

“…41,42 Last but not the least, the MLs with well-controlled optical properties and good durability can be prepared and flexibly modified by various methods. 43,44 Commonly used fabrication methods include laser writing, 45,46 hot embossing, 47,48 soft lithography, 49,50 and drop-templating. 51,52 The fabrication of surface MLs based on nanodroplet polymerization is one of the promising technologies that are highly tunable and affordable.…”

Biomimetic Compound Eyes with Gradient Ommatidium Arrays

“…Plenty of solid compound eyes have been easily manufactured by femtosecond laser direct writing, nanoimprinting, laser-assisted wet etching, surface chemical etching, 3D printing, and photolithography. − Most of these solid-material-based artificial compound eyes have uniform ommatidium arrays and exhibit good imaging performance. Liquid materials have attracted a lot of research interest due to their low cost, and reconfigurable features, , such as tunable liquid lenses and reconfigurable droplet lens arrays, have been developed. − Lenses based on liquid materials are mostly collections of a small number of lenses or large-sized single lenses, and there are still challenges in combining such zoom mechanisms with compound eye structures, especially in manufacturing artificial compound eyes with hundreds or thousands of ommatidia.…”