Broadband omnidirectional antireflection coatings inspired by embroidered ball-like structures on leafhoppers

Brochosome-Inspired Metal-Containing Particles as Biomimetic Building Blocks for Nanoplasmonics: Conceptual Generalizations

“…We start by defining a brochosome-inspired structure from the electromagnetic point of view as any artificial micro- or nanoscale particle that may be hollow or of core-shell type and has its surface nanostructured so that this structuring significantly modifies both its near-field (evanescent/surface-bound waves) and far-field (propagating waves) optical behavior. Such a definition is sufficiently broad to encompass all of the brochosome-inspired particles fabricated until now—e.g., [ 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 ] (which often do include plasmonic/conductive materials as one of their constituents). The definition, however, also covers a number of other structures which share similar design guidelines and exhibit a rich electromagnetic behavior, but the type and the properties of their surface nanostructuring that modifies their optical response are much wider than in those already presented until now to the scientific community.…”

“…As far as possible practical applications are concerned, the brochosome-inspired particles produced until now, although being in their infancy and belonging to quite a narrow range of designs, found their applications in such diverse areas as omnidirectional antireflective structures [ 33 , 38 , 39 ], electrochromic structures and materials [ 65 ], photoanodes for photoelectrochemistry [ 66 ], SERS (surface-enhanced Raman scattering) [ 36 ], superoleophilic and superhydrophobic submicrometer particles [ 34 ], etc. Thus, it stands to reason to expect that a vast extension of the range of possible structures might imply a proportional extension of the applicative potential.…”

“…Yang et al described the fabrication and properties of what they called “synthetic brochosomes”, actually diffractive nanostructured-by-templating antireflective coatings made from plasmonic materials, primarily silver [ 33 ], thus inaugurating in the field of biomimetic plasmonics the topic that makes use of the geometrical attributes of brochosome-like artificial particles. Because the advantageous electromagnetic properties of such simulacra have been swiftly recognized by the scientific community, primarily their antireflective properties in the visible spectrum, other publications dedicated to the topic of their micro/nanofabrication followed [ 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 ]. As far as the authors of this treatise are aware, no teams considered possible generalizations of the designs of brochosome-inspired plasmonic microparticles.…”

An extended family of perforated submicrometer hollow or core-shell plasmonic particles as antireflective synthetic brochosomes

“…Other works dealing with the micro/nanofabrication of synthetic brochosomes include (Sukamanchi et al 2017;Borja 2018;Ding et al 2019;Lei et al 2020;Shih et al 2020;Li et al 2021). Most of these make use of the fact that when fabricating synthetic brochosomes one is not limited by the materials appearing in the natural structures, which ensures a wider range of available properties and thus extended possibilities for practical utilization.…”

“…The experimental applications of synthetic brochosomes proposed so far show their true multifunctionality and include not only omnidirectional antire ective layers (Yang et al 2017;Borja 2018;Lei et al 2020;Shih et al 2020;Li et al 2021) but also superhydrophobic and superoleophilic particles and surfaces (Sukamanchi et al 2017), electrochromic materials (Hua et al 2021), omnidirectional surface-enhanced Raman scattering substrates (Ding et al 2019), photoanodes for photoelectrochemical hydrogen production (Pan et al 2019), etc. At that, this research eld is only in its nascence, the rst paper about the fabrication being published a few years ago (Yang et al 2017).…”