Bioinspired Technology

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The next great technological advance in smartphone screens and solar cells could come from an unexpected source — giant clams. New research from UC Santa Barbara shows some species of these large bivalves produce their white coloration via color-mixing techniques akin to those used in reflective displays.

Appearing in the journal Optica, the study focuses on two species of giant clam and the symbiotic photosynthetic algae with which they cohabitate. Iridescent cells on the inside edge of the clams’ shells where the algae live produce a dazzling array of colors, including blues, greens, golds and — more rarely — white, which the animals mix in different ways.

Both clam species create white by mixing clusters of colors in much the same way that the electronic displays found in televisions, smartphones and electronic billboards combine red, blue and green pixels to make white. However, most of today’s displays generate light using LEDs or another light source, while the clams require only sunlight. Their iridescent cells contain tiny multilayer structures of proteins that act as mirrors, reflecting various wavelengths of light to produce colors.

“If we could create and control structures similar to those that generate color in the clams, it might be possible to build color-reflective displays that work with ambient light sources such as sunlight or normal indoor lighting,” said lead author Amitabh Ghoshal, a postdoctoral fellow at UCSB’s Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies (ICB). “Producing color the way giant clams do could lead to smartphone, tablet and TV screens that use less power and are easier on the eyes.”

Ghoshal worked with Daniel Morse, a professor emeritus in the campus’s Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology and director of this research, and UCSB alumna Elizabeth Eck, now a graduate student at UC Berkeley.

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