Tunable and responsive photonic bio‐inspired materials and their applications

Abstract Bio‐enabled and bio‐mimetic nanomaterials represent functional materials, which use bio‐derived materials and synthetic components to bring the better of two, natural and synthetic, worlds. Prospective broad applications are flexibility and mechanical strength of lightweight structures, adaptive photonic functions and chiroptical activity, ambient processing and sustainability, and potential scalability along with broad sensing/communication abilities. Here, we summarize recent results on relevant functional photonic materials with responsive behavior under mechanical stresses, magnetic field, and changing chemical environment. We focus on recent achievements and trends in tuning optical materials' properties such as light scattering, absorption and reflection, light emission, structural colors, optical birefringence, linear and circular polarization for prospective applications in biosensing, optical communication, optical encoding, fast actuation, biomedical fields, and tunable optical appearance.