Abstract

Many living organisms have evolved photonic structures to produce colouration by light interference, as a result of a continuing natural selection that started million years ago. The physical origin of the spectral selective properties of this kind of structures - which only uses moderate refractive indexes - will be reviewed. Many examples from recent studies will be given, showing that one-, two-, and three-dimensional photonic crystals with partial band gaps are active in nature. The possible biomimetic transposition of these natural structures to actual artificial devices will also be briefly discussed.