Supersized glassy shell of microalgae reveals optical effect valuable for medical imaging

Researchers from Skoltech—a VEB.RF group institution—and their colleagues at the Kurchatov Institute, the Prokhorov General Physics Institute and the Institute of Solid State Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences have recreated the patterned shell of a single-celled diatom alga, scaled it up by a factor of 2,000 and used it to confirm a previously predicted optical effect in an experiment with terahertz waves.

The findings hold promise for imaging systems in biology and medicine and for nondestructive material quality testing in industry.

The supersized shell's structure suggests new approaches for building compact components that focus and shape wavefronts in terahertz devices.

The study was published in Light: Advanced Manufacturing. ...