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Colloidal glasses, bird feathers, and beetle scales can all show structural colors arising from short-ranged spatial correlations between scattering centers. Unlike the structural colors arising from Bragg diffraction in ordered materials…
We investigate the optical properties of an ultrathin film of a topological insulator in the presence of an in-plane magnetic field. We show that due to the combination of the overlap between the surface states of the two layers and the…
The actin cortex is a thin layer of actin filaments and myosin motors beneath the outer membrane of animal cells. It determines the cells' mechanical properties and forms important morphological structures. Physical descriptions of the…
We investigate the geometrical and mechanical properties of adherent cells characterized by a highly anisotropic actin cytoskeleton. Using a combination of theoretical work and experiments on micropillar arrays, we demonstrate that the…
Three-dimensional disordered networks are receiving increasing attention as versatile architectures for highly scattering materials. However, due to their complex morphology, little is still known about the interplay between their…
The oblique helicoidal structure is formed in right-angle cholesterics under the applied electric field. The electric field changes the pitch and cone angle but preserves the single-harmonic modulation of the refractive index. As a result,…
The actin cortex of an animal cell is a thin polymeric layer attached to the inner side of the plasma membrane. It plays a key role in shape regulation and pattern formation on the cellular and tissue scale and, in particular, generates the…
The chiton Acanthopleura granulata uses aragonitic lenses embedded in its shell to focus light onto photoreceptors. Because aragonite is biaxially birefringent, the microstructure of the lens greatly impacts the optical performance. In…
Living organisms have developed a wide range of appearances from iridescent to matt textures. Interestingly, angular independent structural colors, where isotropy in the scattering structure is present, only produce coloration in the blue…
We extend an efficient homogenization procedure based on a Haydock representation of the microscopic wave operator for the calculation of the macroscopic dielectric response of a periodic composite to the case of an arbitrary number of…
Structural disorder has been shown to enhance and modulate magnetic, electrical, dipolar, electrochemical, and mechanical properties of materials. However, the possibility of obtaining novel optical and optoelectronic properties from…
How pigment distribution influences the cuticle density within a microscopic butterfly wing scale, and how both impact each scale's final reflected color, remains unknown. We use ptychographic X-ray computed tomography to quantitatively…
The physical gelation of colloids produces elastic structures that are commonly used to stabilize complex fluids in multiple industries. However, the ability to control the level of elastic modulus of these materials is limited by the…
Few-layer flakes of hexagonal boron nitride were prepared by ultrasonication of bulk crystals and agglomerated to form thin films. The transmission and reflection spectra of the thin films were measured. The spectral dependences of the…
The colourful wings of butterflies result from the interaction between light and the intricate chitinous nanostructures on butterflies' scales. This study demonstrates that just by reproducing the chitinous ridges present in butterfly…
Photonic materials with angular independent structural colour are highly desirable because they offer the broad viewing angles required for application as colorants in paints, cosmetics, textiles or displays. However, they are challenging…
One-dimensional photonic crystals with slowly varying, i.e. "chirped", lattice period are responsible for broadband light reflectance in many diverse biological contexts, ranging from the shiny coatings of various beetles to the eyes of…
Chirality is an intriguing property of certain molecules, materials or artificial nanostructures, which allows them to interact with the spin angular momentum of the impinging light field. Due to their chiral geometry, they can distinguish…
A multifold Hopf semimetal is a topological point node semimetal possessing an anisotropy in the internal electronic structure, e.g., the dipole structure of the Berry curvature. In this paper, the unique features of threefold Hopf…
Optically anisotropic materials are sought after for tailoring the polarization of light. Recently, colossal optical anisotropy was reported in a quasi-one-dimensional chalcogenide, Sr1.125TiS3. Compared to SrTiS3, the excess Sr in…