Optical features embedded in marine shells may help develop responsive, transparent displays
Thursday, February 26, 2015 - 10:30
in Physics & Chemistry
The blue-rayed limpet is a tiny mollusk that lives in kelp beds along the coasts of Norway, Iceland, the United Kingdom, Portugal, and the Canary Islands. These diminutive organisms -- as small as a fingernail -- might escape notice entirely, if not for a very conspicuous feature: bright blue dotted lines that run in parallel along the length of their translucent shells. Depending on the angle at which light hits, a limpet's shell can flash brilliantly even in murky water.