Moth-eye-inspired materials could reduce X-ray dosages

The work, led by City University of New York’s Prof Yasha Yi in collaboration with professors Bo Liu and Hong Chen of Tongji University, Shanghai, was published on 3 July in Optics Letters.

Moths and butterflies have large compound eyes made up of thousands of ommatidia structures consisting of primitive cornea and lenses connected to photoreceptor cells.

Moth eyes, unlike those of butterflies, are anti-reflective, bouncing back very little of the light that strikes them. The adaptation helps the insects be stealthier and less visible to predators during their nocturnal flights. Because of this feature, engineers have looked to the moth eye to help them design more efficient coatings for solar panels and anti-reflective surfaces for military devices.

Yi and his colleagues used the moth eye as a model for a new class of materials that improves the light-capturing efficiency of X-ray machines and similar medical imaging devices.