Fig. 1.

Our bio-inspired imaging sensor uses a new design paradigm to capture color and near-infrared fluorescence information. (a) Morpho butterfly (Morpho peleides) blue color is due to tree-shaped photonic crystals in its wings. Similar photonic crystals can be found in the butterfly’s ommatidia. (b) Close-up of the Morpho ommatidia indicating “eye-shine” due to tapetal filters together with screening and visual pigments in the rhabdom, which enable multispectral target detection. (c) Our compact bio-inspired multispectral imaging sensor combines an array of imaging elements with pixelated tapetal spectral filters. (d) Transmission electron microscope image of an individual Morpho ommatidium, which monolithically integrates tapetal filters with light-sensitive rhabdom. (e) Cross-sectional scanning electron microscope image of our bio-inspired imaging sensor. Tapetal filters combined with silicon photodetectors allow for high co-registration accuracy in the detected spectral information. Scale bar, 2 µm.