Micro Optical-Interference-Plate Featuring Highly Efficient Diamagnetic Rotation of Biogenic Crystals

This paper focuses on the light interference in biogenic guanine crystals that have interesting optical properties such as high reflectivity and optical biaxiality. In this paper, we find that a Moiré effect pattern is generated on a single guanine crystal of goldfish combining with the mirror surface substrate. An observation system, in this paper, is consisted with telecentric lens and coaxial vertical illumination using blue LED light source. It is clearly seen that homogeneous light and shade stripe patterns are observed on the broadest surface of the single guanine crystal plate floating in water. By contrast, when the guanine crystals are set on the substrates having the diffused reflection surface, this light and shade stripe pattern is not observed on the single guanine crystal but observed on two cross-stacked crystals as reported before. These results show that the light and shade stripe pattern on the single guanine crystal is produced by the optical interference, so-called Moiré effect, between guanine crystal and the mirror substrate surface. The angle dependence of reflection brightness and the magnetic orientation of guanine crystal are investigated by using Moiré patterns. Furthermore, we demonstrate that small curvatures and steps can be optically detected and estimated by the pattern change of Moiré stripes. It is confirmed that the direction of curvature is detected by controlling the guanine crystal orientation with magnetic fields and the curvature shape is reproduced from the Moiré pattern.