ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the structure and the coloring mechanism of a morpho butterfly wing and introduces structural color fibers and films that are developed using them. A chromogenic effect is caused when a white light is projected on a fine structure of a size equal to or shorter than a light wavelength— it is called coloring. Structural color is caused by the scattering, refraction, interference, diffraction, and so forth, of light. And the structures that cause structural coloring include the multilayer structure that is formed by laminating thin plates with mutually different refractive indexes. In nature, many structural colors caused by the interference of light are already recognized. The larger the refractive index difference between two resins or the larger the number of laminated layers, the higher the reflectance of light, and the color of the film can look dark and deep.
