Credit: Lin Wang and Tak-Sing Wong / Penn State
Brochosomes are hollow, nanoscopic, soccer ball-shaped spheroids with through-holes that are produced by the common backyard insect, the leafhopper. Researchers found that the through-holes of these hollow buckyballs help reduce the reflection of light. This is the first biological example showing short wavelength, low-pass antireflection functionality enabled by through-holes and hollow structures.