Vapor Sensing of Pristine and ALD Modified Butterfly Wings

Abstract

Butterfly wing scales containing three-dimensional photonic nanoarchitectures exhibit measurable color change when adding to the ambient air different types of volatile vapors. This allows their use as optical vapor sensors. The sensing mechanism is based on the capillary condensation of the vapors into the nanoarchitecture. Using principal component analysis we show that the spectral shift is vapor specific and proportional with the vapor concentration both in the case of pristine and ALD modified butterfly wings.