Nanotechnology sometimes borrows from nature.

Morpho butterfly: Pigments don’t cause these butterflies’ intense colors. Instead, super-small lattice-like structures on the wings reflect only certain wavelengths of light (or color). And the colors shift with your perspective. (Photo courtesy Lionoche, through Flickr)

Super-small, light-reflecting structures—instead of pigments—create a morpho butterfly's intense, iridescent wing color. Scientists are developing nanomaterials with similar properties.

Zoom in on a butterfly's wing

If you used a special microscope to look at these butterfly wings, you’d see tiny scales made up of thin layers of transparent wing material with nanoscale gaps between them. Light waves bouncing off the bottom surfaces interfere with waves reflecting from the tops. Most light waves are cancelled and only certain wavelengths—or colors—bounce back to your eyes. The more light in the environment, the brighter the color.

Wing structures: These complicated structures on butterfly wings manipulate light to control the color that we see.

How do transparent thin films create color?: Scientists haven't yet created materials that work exactly like the butterfly wings. But layers and layers of transparent, super-thin films--each with a different index of refraction--can be tuned so that they only reflect specific wavelengths of light (o

Scientists are developing all sorts of products that, like the butterfly wings, use layers of transparent materials with nanoscale spacing between them to manipulate light and create color. With them, we can create computer and cell phone displays, fabrics and paints that change color, optical devices that improve telecommunications systems, and films that reflect much more light than glass mirrors. Can you imagine other uses?