Mechanisms of structural colour in the Morpho butterfly: cooperation of regularity and irregularity in an iridescent scale

摘要: Structural colour in the Morpho butterfly originates from submicron structure within a scale and, for over century, its and reflectivity have been explained as interference of light due to multilayer cuticle air. However, this model fails explain extraordinarily uniform wing with respect observation direction. We performed microscopic, optical theoretical investigations, found that separate lamellar irregular heights is extremely important. Using simple model, we shown combined action diffraction essential structural butterfly.