Laura Chua

The overall research project aims to understand and leverage nature’s ability to manipulate color to create novel, electrochemically tunable photonic devices. Specifically, the lab studies the reflectin protein found in cephalopods (squid and octopuses), which allows these animals to change color and reflect light for camouflage. This project investigated bioinspired metasurfaces - mimicking the structural color-changing abilities of the market squid to develop dynamic, tunable optical pixels using reflectin proteins and specialized fluorescent dyes. Using a combination of thin film preparation, an inverted microscope setup with a supercontinuum laser, and potentiostat-driven voltage, the research successfully demonstrated a stable and cyclable tunable red pixel using Congo Red dye bound to electrochemically folded reflectin triggered by low voltage. The work also explored several other prospective fluorophores for green pixels and the voltage dependence of dye and reflection fluorescence interactions. This area could result in next-generation materials where light-matter interactions can be controlled with the flip of a switch!