title: Ultranegative angular dispersion of diffraction in quasiordered biophotonic structures.
abstract: We report that a three-dimensional quasiordered photonic structure, found in the cuticles of beetle H. sexmaculata, can diffract light in a "wrong" way and its angular dispersion is about one order of magnitude larger than that of a conventional diffraction grating. A new diffraction type of photonic bandgap (from an anticrossing of longitudinal and transverse modes) and additional disorder effect are found to play important roles in this phenomenon. Mimicking the structure could lead to novel optical devices with ultralarge angular dispersion.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Surface Physics Laboratory, and Key Laboratory of Micro and Nano Photonic Structures (Ministry of Education), Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Biqin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Dong
authors.forename: Fangyuan
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Xinhua
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.forename: Xiaohan
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zi
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D001703:Biophysics / Q000379:methods*; D001517:Coleoptera / Q000502:physiology* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D003116:Color; D003460:Crystallization; D004867:Equipment Design; D005583:Fourier Analysis; D008027:Light; D046529:Microscopy, Electron, Transmission / Q000379:methods; D015233:Models, Statistical; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D055095:Optics and Photonics; D017785:Photons; D012542:Scattering, Radiation