Nature is the roadmap for the next generation of medical and technology advances. The premise is that a natural form offers ready-made solutions for efficient design that's already been tested over millions of years of evolution.
Scientists at Boston College turned to biomimicry and used the blue print of a spider web and the veins of a leaf to create a model for the next generation of light manipulating optoelectronic applications - devices that control and detect light like touch screens and display panels.
In the same way a spider web traps insects, a network designed like the spider web can draw in light through an optoelectronic device. Because of its flexibility, mechanical strength, stealth-like transparency and consistent uniformity, the design of the spider web can be applied to a new generation of flexible monitors, durable touch screens or display panels which pave the way for wearable screens and elastic mobile phones.
Through their research project, spider web designs showed promise for drawing light into displays and touch-screens where leaf-based designs showed promise for electrodes for solar cells and transparent heaters.
The researchers say the specific network patterns they discovered based on the spider web could improve the efficiency of solar cells and the performance of new touch screens.
"Increasing efficiency of solar cells is a critical component in the quest for renewable energy sources, a major sustainability and ecological challenge," said Andrzej Herczynski, co-author of the report and Research Associate Professor of Physics, Boston College.
Spiderwebs and leafs serve as a blue print for a new generation of flexible devices like flexible... [+]
