Luminescence light collection technology in the aragonite of stone corals
| Autor: | N Neumann-Micheau, H Tributsch |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2018 |
| Předmět: |
0106 biological sciences
Materials science Luminescence Coral Biophysics Mineralogy Context (language use) engineering.material 01 natural sciences Biochemistry Calcium Carbonate chemistry.chemical_compound 0103 physical sciences Animals 010306 general physics Symbiosis Engineering (miscellaneous) Calcite Photolysis business.industry 010604 marine biology & hydrobiology Aragonite Photodissociation Solar energy Anthozoa Calcium carbonate chemistry engineering Molecular Medicine business Biotechnology |
| Zdroj: | Bioinspirationbiomimetics. 13(6) |
| ISSN: | 1748-3190 |
| Popis: | Stone corals do not use calcium carbonate in the form of calcite, which has a calculated energy gap of 3.93 eV, but in the form of aragonite, which has a calculated energy gap of 2.88 eV (here experimentally determined to amount to 2.46 eV) as a building material. This enables the coral to harvest blue light, which is penetrating and filtering deep into the surface water of the ocean. White luminescence, which is composed of different wave lengths, is generated, and then conducted and redistributed within the aragonite structure to be supplied to the symbiotic photosynthetic algae. This mechanism of light concentration and adaptation via the aragonite structure leads to a smaller amount of light-absorbing phosphorescent pigments being required for the symbionts to survive. The resulting advantages are a significantly smaller exposure to photo-degradation, less effort for chemical synthesis and higher efficiency for solar energy conversion. The mechanism of luminescence light collection in the aragonite network is discussed on the basis of spectroscopic measurements on thin coral slices and in context with its architecture and the coral's living activities. The relevance of the stone coral's fractal geometry, both for broadband solar light harvesting and luminescence light collection within non-imaging optics, is emphasized. It is proposed that synthetic aragonite should be developed as a solar energy material. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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