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IEEE Spectrum article....
Mantis Shrimp's Eyes Hold Key to New Optics
Imitating the most complex vision system in the animal world could improve DVDs and CDs, scientists say
27 October 2009—Scientists have discovered the mechanism behind the eyes of the only animal that can detect a certain kind of polarized light: the mantis shrimp, native to Australia's Great Barrier Reef.
Optical devices can manipulate the polarization of light for research and for commercial products like CD and DVD players and digital cameras. However, these devices can't manipulate light nearly as well as the mantis shrimp can, says biologist Nicholas Roberts of the University of Bristol, in England. Roberts, together with scientists at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County; and the University of Queensland, Australia, reported the finding yesterday in the journal Nature Photonics.
It's been known that some animals, including humans, have a slight ability to perceive the linear polarization of light. Linear polarized light has an electric field oriented in only one direction or plane But the mantis shrimp's sophisticated eyes do much better. They can distinguish between left- and right-rotated circularly polarized light—where the orientation of the electric field rotates as the light travels—a unique ability in nature. The creature's eyes can also convert linearly polarized light into circular polarization, and vice versa.
That principle of converting between linearly and circularly polarized light is used in some of the most common optical devices today, Roberts says. But man-made devices are limited to manipulating polarization at a single wavelength, while the mantis shrimp—properly called a stomatopod—can achieve this feat across the visible spectrum, from blue to red.
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Imitating the most complex vision system in the animal world could improve DVDs and CDs, scientists say
27 October 2009—Scientists have discovered the mechanism behind the eyes of the only animal that can detect a certain kind of polarized light: the mantis shrimp, native to Australia's Great Barrier Reef.
Optical devices can manipulate the polarization of light for research and for commercial products like CD and DVD players and digital cameras. However, these devices can't manipulate light nearly as well as the mantis shrimp can, says biologist Nicholas Roberts of the University of Bristol, in England. Roberts, together with scientists at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County; and the University of Queensland, Australia, reported the finding yesterday in the journal Nature Photonics.
It's been known that some animals, including humans, have a slight ability to perceive the linear polarization of light. Linear polarized light has an electric field oriented in only one direction or plane But the mantis shrimp's sophisticated eyes do much better. They can distinguish between left- and right-rotated circularly polarized light—where the orientation of the electric field rotates as the light travels—a unique ability in nature. The creature's eyes can also convert linearly polarized light into circular polarization, and vice versa.
That principle of converting between linearly and circularly polarized light is used in some of the most common optical devices today, Roberts says. But man-made devices are limited to manipulating polarization at a single wavelength, while the mantis shrimp—properly called a stomatopod—can achieve this feat across the visible spectrum, from blue to red.
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