Brilliant Blue Observation from a Morpho-Butterfly-Scale Quasi-Structure

The Morpho -butterfly wing reflects interfered brilliant blue, which originates from nanostructures on its scales, for any incidence angle of white light. We have, for the first time, fabricated a Morpho -butterfly-scale quasi-structure using focused-ion-beam chemical-vapor-deposition (FIB-CVD) and observed brilliant blue reflection from this quasi-structure with an optical microscope. We measured the reflection from real Morpho -butterfly scales and from the quasi-structure with a photonic multi-channel spectral analyzer system. The reflection spectra of the quasi-structure were very similar to those of Morpho -butterfly scales.