Light Trapping Effect in Wing Scales of Butterfly Papilio peranthus and Its Simulations

Broadband light trapping effect and arrays of sub-wavelength textured structures based on the butterfly wing scales are applicable to solar cells and stealth technologies. In this paper, the fine optical structures in wing scales of butterfly Papilio peranthus, exhibiting efficient light trapping effect, were carefully examined. First, the reflectivity was measured by reflectance spectrum. Field Emission Scanning Electronic Microscope （FESEM） and Transmission Electron Microscope （TEM） were used to observe the coupling morphologies and structures of the scales. Then, the optimized 3D model of the coupling structure was created combining Scanning Electron Microscope （SEM） and TEM data. Afterwards, the mechanism of the light trapping effect of these structures was analyzed by simulation and theoretical calculations. A multilayer nano-structure of chitin and air was found. These structures are effective in increasing optical path, resulting in that most of the incident light can be trapped and adsorbed within the structure at last. Furthermore, the simulated optical results are consistent with the experimental and calculated ones. This result reliably confirms that these structures induce an efficient light trapping effect. This work can be used as a reference for in-depth study on the fabrication of highly efficient bionic optical devices, such as solar cells, photo detectors, high-contrast, antiglare, and so forth.

Ag nanoparticles preparation and their light trapping performance

Ag nanoparticles were fabricated on Si substrates by radio-frequency magnetron sputtering and thermal annealing treatments.It was found that Ag nanoparticles are ellipsoid at low annealing temperature,but the axis ratio decreases with the increase of annealing temperature,and a shape transformation from ellipsoid to sphere occurs when the temperature increases to a critical point.The experimental results showed that the surface plasmon resonances depend greatly on the nanoparticles'shape and size,which is in accordance with the theoretical calculation based on discrete dipole approximation.The results of forward-scattering efficiency(FSE) and light trapping spectrum(LTS) showed that Ag nanoparticles annealed at 400°C could strongly enhance the light harvest than those annealed at 300 and 500°C,and that the LTS peak intensity of the former is 1.7 and 1.5 times stronger than those of the later two samples,respectively.The conclusions obtained in this paper showed that Ag ellipsoid nanoparticles with appropriate size is more favorable for enhancing the light trapping.