Engineered Biomimicry: Chapter 14. Solution-Based Techniques for Biomimetics and Bioreplication

Nature generates structurally complex architectures with feature sizes covering several length scales under rather simple environmental conditions and with limited resources. Today, researchers understand how many of these structures look and behave, but, in many instances, we still lack nature’s ability to marry elegant structures with complex functionality. By unraveling the wonders of nature’s design, scientists have developed biomimetic and biotemplated materials with entirely new functions and behaviors. In particular, solution-based methods provide simple, inexpensive routes to generating bioreplicated structures. In this chapter, we survey solution-based bioreplication methods and provide an example for generating three-dimensional photonic crystal structures based on colored weevil scales. This example illustrates how structural engineering in biology can be replicated using sol–gel chemistry and results in an entirely new optical material with fascinating properties.