Peacock feather supported self assembled ZnO nanostructures for tuning photonic properties

Abstract

Barbules of the peacock feather have been used as the natural template for developing assemblies of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanospheres. The different colored barbules consisting of various photonic crystals (extracted from eye-pattern) were characterized in terms of the stop-bands identified in the respective Reflectance spectra. The stop-bands of the photonic crystals are found to get red-shifted after the loading of ZnO nanospheres and was reasoned to the modification of photonic band gap. The ZnO nanosphere decorated barbules show well defined photoluminescence response with dominant defect related emission of ZnO. The artificially grown inorganic structures on natural templates form a basis of new hybrid system that can help in exploiting photonic band gap engineering and light wave modulation with high selectivity.