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Materials science

The same, but better

Moving beyond mimicry, biologically inspired artificial materials can be simpler in design yet more powerful in function than their natural analogues. A tropical fruit seed serves as a guide to making new photonic elements.

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Figure 1: Fruit-inspired optical fibres.

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Correspondence to Teri W. Odom.

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Odom, T. The same, but better. Nature 496, 40–41 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/496040a

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