Nanotomography study of individual gyroids and domain textures in multi-hierarchical structures of butterflies for bioinspired photonics

Many biological systems evolved unique ways to assemble multi-hierarchical structures with functions ranging from sensing to light manipulation. To harvest the full potential of the bio-inspired structures it is important to understand the underlying processes of their formation in biological systems. We will study topological textures in multi-hierarchical photonic structures of butterflies to understand their role and mechanism of their formation. We aim to acquire high-resolution tomograms of naturally grown gyroidal and ridge-like photonic networks (ca. 300-500 nm unit cells) and their domains (10-20 microns). We will use the acquired data to: (1) perform Landau phase-field modelling to understand whether the topologies are emergent or induced by the organisms; and (2) simulate the photonic properties of the topological textures to understand whether they are coherent with surrounding structures or carry their unique optical signatures.