Nanowerk November 22, 2022
Using a toolkit consisting of numerical models and four microscopy techniques, researchers in Canada evaluated the optical response of frustules belonging to the species Nitzschia filiformis. Localized regions of the frustule exhibited functionalities including diffraction, lensing, waveguiding, circulation, filtering, resonances, and dispersion control. They showed that these functionalities are complementary to each other in contributing to the solar energy harvesting mechanisms of capture, redistribution, and retention. In this context, frustule performance was enhanced by perturbations to its sub-wavelength structure. According to the researchers their finding provides quantitative support to the hypothesis that the frustule enhances photosynthesis in the cell and supports the case for cultivating diatoms as sustainably mass-manufacturable devices with applications in solar energy, carbon sequestration, sensing, medicine, and metamaterials…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLEÂ
Architecture of the frustule… Credit: Optical Materials Express Vol. 12, Issue 12, pp. 4665-4681 (2022)Â