Bio-inspired photonic crystals: Tailoring the dielectric building blocks to control the light propagation

Photonic crystals have drawn tremendous attention in recent years owing to their unique optical properties and remarkable advantages in various applications such as bioassays, sensors and optical devices. Benefiting from the spatially ordered structures, the flow of visible light can be manipulated by photonic crystals in a controlled manner. In this review, we summarize recent progress toward bio-inspired photonic crystals, including techniques for the construction of spatially ordered structures in diverse dimensions for photonic crystals, and strategies to manipulate the periodicity of the dielectric building blocks to control the light propagation in the presence of external stimuli. We start with the description of structure induced colors in nature with a systematic investigation to reveal the derivation of these colors, followed by a discussion on the design and fabrication of various types of bio-inspired photonic crystals by manipulating the arrangement of dielectric building blocks. We also highlight the stimuli responsive photonic crystals with tunable optical properties and their applications in sensing and color display.