The brightest colours in nature are not from pigmentation but originate from the interaction of light with nanostructured materials. Such structural colorations are widespread in nature, and many spectacular examples are reported both for animals and plants, e.g. butterflies and tulips. In the context of plants, cellulose is assembled in micrometric fibers that form helicoidal multilayer structures, thus reflecting vivid coloration. Such natural examples provide a great inspiration for producing novel devices with similar optical response using analogous strategies and materials.
My PhD focuses on the production of new structures that mimic the optical properties of natural materials using cellulose, the most abundant bio-polymer on Earth. I use naturally-sourced cellulose nanocrystals that spontaneously self-assemble into structurally coloured films with helicoid architectures whose main strengths are sustainability, ease of fabrication and unique tuneable optical properties.
I studied Materials Engineering and Nanotecnology at Politecnico di Milano, Italy: MA (hons), BA.
A: Macroscopic picture of CNC film with coffee ring effect. B: Optical microscopy image of CNC film refelcting left circularly polarized green light. C. SEM image of a CNC film cross section showing the characteristic helicoidal arrangement.