Fun with Rocks and Minerals
This article on rocks and minerals talks about some fun things that may find their way into the Combined Service universe, including biophotonic crystals:
Image from Silke Baron.
Used under a creative commons license.
Photonic crystals are tiny repeating structures, each about a billionth of a metre across. They can control and manipulate how light flows.
Depending on the angles of its faces, a photonic crystal will only allow certain wavelengths of light through, and blocks all the others. This determines its colour.
The blocked wavelengths are called “photonic band gaps”. Wavelengths near these band gaps tend to scatter and interfere with one another. This is what creates the vivid colours and striking iridescence of some insects, particularly butterflies and beetles, whose colours appear to change depending on the angle they’re viewed from.
We can’t make usable photonic crystals yet, but we’re getting there. Maybe the avians or the octopods got there first!
There’s some other fun stuff in the article, including how to make sugar triboluminesce. Check it out!
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