Bioreplication – Mother Nature’s Way Of Helping Us Help Her

Akhlesh Lakhtakia, Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics at Penn State University, working with Professor Carlo G. Pantano, graduate student Drew Patrick Pulsifer, and Professor Raúl José Martín-Palma of the Universidad Autónomia de Madrid, Spain, found that corneas of the blowfly was ideal for increasing power production for the next generation of solar cells. Blowflies have compound eyes that are roughly hemispherical, within each half sphere the surface is covered by macroscale hexagonal eyes with nanoscale features that allows the flies a 270° field of view. Mimicking this would allow solar cells to collect vast amounts of sunlight from a lot of different angles. This amounts to an extremely larger area and maximized efficiency while occupying the same footprint as a flat surfaced solar cell. (more…)