Mathias Kolle
Rockwell Career Development Professor in Mechanical Engineering
Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Abstract: Nature is beautiful in its colors, and color perception plays a central role in our life. The obvious tool to shape the light spectrum is spectrally-selective light-absorbing pigmentation (to my great dismay, when confronted with the often color-poor choices of fashion designers); but just having the right pigment handy isn’t all that easy; for instance, the vast majority of organisms have no means of being blue … unless they know of the virtue of nano- and micro-scale material structures for manipulating light. In fact, for color strength, dynamics, and function, material structure control is everything! In this color-laced presentation, I will start by briefly discussing one example of our recent research, where structure-based light-manipulation principles gleaned from nature have helped us to devise a new technique for microscopic imaging of low-contrast hard-to-image specimens, such as bacteria and cells. Having established that bio-inspired optical design is useful, I will then argue that the interdisciplinary community of biological photonics and bio-inspired optics faces two key challenges, captured in two simple questions: How does nature grow functional materials with feature control across all relevant length scales? How can engineers make copious amounts of optically dynamic, useful materials with the required structural complexity? My students and I answer these questions to provide a perspective on how to better master the phenomena and bio-mechanical processes involved in biological structure formation and how to design dynamic optical materials at scale with unprecedented functionality.