Throwing light on shrimp eye polarization - October 26, 2009
A new understanding of one of nature’s most complicated eyes could lead improvements in a huge range of modern electronic devices, according to a paper published in Nature Photonics.
Nicholas Roberts, of the University of Bristol, and colleagues have worked out how the ‘quarter-wave plates’ in the eyes of mantis shrimp work.
As you may have guessed, a quarter-wave plate rotates the plane of polarization of a light wave by a quarter. Crucially, they can convert between linearly polarized light and circularly polarized light, something that makes them useful for DVD players, CD players, and camera filters.
“Our work reveals for the first time the unique design and mechanism of the quarter-wave plate in the mantis shrimp’s eye,” says Roberts (press release). “It really is exceptional, outperforming anything we humans have so far been able to create.”
Shrimp eyes use cleverly designed cell membranes rolled into collections of tubes to make their quarter wave plates and to help them see polarized light (as well as twelve colours as opposed to human eyes, which have a rather paltry three colour palette), the authors report.
Study author Justin Marshall of the University of Queensland says shrimp also reflect circular polarized light off their bodies.
“They have a cuticle on their skin that reflects it,” he told ABC. “They’re talking to each other with a secret light channel.”
Now we’re closer to understanding how shrimp eyes work, we may be able to use their advanced optics to make better electronics, using liquid crystals to mimic them, say the authors.
This is undoubtedly very cool science, but won’t we just be downloading our movies and games by the time they get this working for DVDs?
Image mantis shrimp (Odontodactylus scyllarus) / Roy Caldwell.
Comments
Fascinating information! Dumb closing paragraph.
Posted by: Carried to you on a beam of light | October 26, 2009 04:34 PM