Characterization of natural photonic structures by means of optimization strategies

Natural photonic structures exhibit remarkable color effects such as metallic appearance and iridescence. A rigorous study of the electromagnetic response of such complex structures requires to accurately determine some of their relevant optical parameters, e.g. the dielectric constants of the materials involved. In a recent work, we have shown that heuristic optimization strategies are suitable tools for the retrieval of the complex refractive index of the materials comprising natural multilayer systems such as the Coleoptera’s cuticle. Moreover, the numerical results obtained illustrate the great potential of this kind of algorithms not only for the study of natural photonic structures, but also for the design of biomimetic photonic devices for lightning, sensing or anti-counterfeiting applications. In a first stage, we assumed that the materials which comprise the layers are characterized by isotropic non-dispersive dielectric permittivities. However, it is well known that the cuticle of many Coleoptera exhibit anisotropy in their constituent materials, and also dispersion has been reported. In this contribution we improve our previous approach in order to have a more realistic and useful computational tool for the retrieval of the relevant parameters of biological structures. For this, we include, within the inversion algorithm, a dispersion model to describe the frequency-dependent dielectric permittivity of the layers’ materials. Also, in order to guarantee the uniqueness of the solution and the convergence to the global optimum, we simultaneously include in the fitness function the information of several angles of incidence, as well as that of the p- and s-polarization states. © (2015) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.