The feathers can emit two frequencies of laser light from multiple regions across their colored eyespots. //
Peacock feathers are greatly admired for their bright iridescent colors, but it turns out they can also emit laser light when dyed multiple times, according to a paper published in the journal Scientific Reports. Per the authors, it's the first example of a biolaser cavity within the animal kingdom.
As previously reported, the bright iridescent colors in things like peacock feathers and butterfly wings don't come from any pigment molecules but from how they are structured. The scales of chitin (a polysaccharide common to insects) in butterfly wings, for example, are arranged like roof tiles. Essentially, they form a diffraction grating, except photonic crystals only produce certain colors, or wavelengths, of light, while a diffraction grating will produce the entire spectrum, much like a prism.
Both are naturally occurring examples of what physicists call photonic crystals. Also known as photonic bandgap materials, photonic crystals are "tunable," which means they are precisely ordered in such a way as to block certain wavelengths of light while letting others through. Alter the structure by changing the size of the tiles, and the crystals become sensitive to a different wavelength. (In fact, the rainbow weevil can control both the size of its scales and how much chitin is used to fine-tune those colors as needed.).
Even better (from an applications standpoint), the perception of color doesn't depend on the viewing angle. //
quackmeister Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
8y
162
If this didn't already appear in a scene from the Incredibles set in the villain's palatial gardens, it should have. //
Chuckstar Ars Legatus Legionis
22y
35,919
Gives me an opportunity to link to my favorite video of a wild peacock in action. In case anyone wondered if the peacock's tail really acted as a proxy that the individual had to be fit enough to simply survive carrying such a thing around (if the embedded time stamp doesn't work, the action starts at 1:15):
