Biometamaterial: Dark ultrathin gold film fabricated on taro leaf

A dark metamaterial of gold thin films is reported fabricated on a taro-leaf surface, used as a template. In spite of gold coating over the taro leaf, the surface is dark and has great light-absorption at the visible wavelengths. Finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) calculations predict the low reflectivity stemming from the nanostructures of a taro leaf, where randomly oriented nanoplates of thin rectangular plates are vertically set on edge.

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