Antireflective amorphous carbon nanocone arrays inspired from compound eyes

A nanocone-arrayed amorphous carbon architecture with favorable antireflective property has been fabricated through a one-step vacuum sintering process, mimicking the hierarchical nipple array structure on compound eyes of the butterfly Euploea mulciber. The architecture presents a reflectance of 2–3% in visible light (380–750 nm), much lower than relevant flat-plate amorphous carbon with approximately 11% reflection. Poynting vector maps based on 3D finite differential time domain simulation reveal that the nanocone arrays redistribute the incident light in both horizontal and vertical directions and thus enhance the light absorption, contributing to the low reflectance. Simulated reflection results convey that the array height determines the wavelength range of minimum reflection, and proper lattice constant and nipple thickness, together with small tilt angle, can result in good antireflective property. This article contains supporting information that will be made available online once the issue is published. In the meantime, if you wish to get a copy of the supplementary file please contact the Managing Editor, Sohini Banerjee, at sohini.banerjee@icepublishing.com