Butterflies cannot fly until ambient temperatures rise above a critical minimum, but they are aided in this regard by their wings, which they use as solar collectors. Anyone who has watched butterflies has seen them orient themselves according to the position of the sun and lower their wings to capture the light.
It has now been discovered that the scales on the wings not only function as solar collectors, but that the technology involved can be utilized in the manufacture of photoelectric cells.
The results show that the calcined photoanodes with butterfly wings’ structures, which comprised arranged ridges and ribs consisting of nanoparticles, were fully crystallined. Analysis of absorption spectra measurements under visible light wavelength indicates that the light-harvesting efficiencies of the QHS photoanode were higher than the normal titania photoanode without biotemplates because of the special microstructures
