The bright iridescence from butterfly scales is a result of the combined effects of diffraction and interference of light that originate from hierarchical nanostructures within a particular scale.

From there, students felt a butterfly wing image as viewed through a microscope, with fish scale-like images making the intricacy of the butterfly’s wing accessible. Magnified even higher ...

Whatever the angle of view, they appear strongly ... passing through a window pane with microscopic jaggedness of the sort that is found on Morpho butterfly wing surfaces. The simulation results ...