Most
moths fly chiefly at night. Whereas some nighttime creatures reveal their
presence when a beam of light causes their eyes to glow, the moth has a stealth
feature of sorts—its cornea is considerably less reflective.
The
moth’s eye has an unusual cornea—it is composed of arrays of microscopic bumps,
arranged in hexagonal patterns. The bumps “are smaller than the wavelength of
visible light. The pattern and size of those arrays enable a moth’s eye to trap
light from several wavelengths and angles. The tiny bumps are only 200 to 300
nanometers in height. By way of comparison, the width of an average human hair
is about 80,000 nanometers!
Engineers
hope that a deeper understanding of the moth’s cornea will help them improve
their design of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and liquid crystal displays
(LCDs), commonly used in electronic devices.
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