Can optical structures in feathers of a bird spawn a technology revolution?

Yale researchers have found a solution to the challenge of creating gyroids — structures that can both reflect light and conduct electricity — in a bird’s wing.
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For years engineers have struggled to create in a usable form a structure known as a gyroid, a peculiar multi-surface object that can both reflect light and conduct electricity and just may hold the key to a host of photonics-related technologies, from advanced solar panels to fuel cells. Yale researchers have found a possible solution to this challenge in the wing of a bird. 

A new Yale video highlights a discovery made by a team of researchers — including Vinod Kumar Saranathan, a senior research fellow at Yale-NUS College, and Richard Prum, William Robertson Coe Professor of Ornithology at Yale — and its potential implications for the future of technology.