Physics

Dr. Vinod Kumar Saranathan
National University of Singapore, Singapore

Abstract:

Colors are usually produced chemically by pigments, but can also be physically, by interference of light scattered from structural color-producing or biophotonic nanostructures. Vivid, saturated structural colors are abundant in nature and frequently used in social and sexual communication, and crypsis. Over the past decade, using synchrotron Small Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS), I have structurally and optically characterized biophotonic nanostructures across hundreds of species of birds and arthropods, in a comparative evolutionary
framework. This large body of structural knowledge has brought about the realization that despite their overwhelmingly diverse forms and functions, biophotonic nanostructures all develop via intracellular self-assembly processes. However, the precise details of their intracellular development are unknown, considering these are non-model systems and because of the dearth of developmental studies. My inter-disciplinary research creates novel interconnections among the fields of soft materials physics, photonics, evolutionary biology, and developmental biology, and happens to be highly relevant to current challenges in materials science and engineering of complex, structured mesophases and may biomimetically inspire novel ways of materials
synthesis. In this talk, I will address the physics, evolution and biomimetic potential of organismal structural colors, and conclude with some recent results on the morphogenesis of biophotonic nanostructures.