Benjamin Alexander Palmer

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev | bgu · Department of Chemistry

Many animals undergo changes in functional colors during development, requiring the replacement of integument or pigment cells. A classic example of defensive color switching is found in hatchling lizards, which use conspicuous tail colors to deflect predator attacks away from vital organs. These tail colors usually fade to concealing colors during...

A fundamental question regarding light scattering is how whiteness, generated from multiple scattering, can be obtained from thin layers of materials. This challenge arises from the phenomenon of optical crowding, whereby, for scatterers packed with filling fractions higher than ~30%, reflectance is drastically reduced due to near-field coupling be...

Many oceanic prey animals use transparent bodies to avoid detection. However, conspicuous eye pigments, required for vision, compromise the organisms' ability to remain unseen. We report the discovery of a reflector overlying the eye pigments in larval decapod crustaceans and show how it is tuned to render the organisms inconspicuous against the ba...

Animals precisely control the morphology and assembly of guanine crystals to produce diverse optical phenomena in coloration and vision. However, little is known about how organisms regulate crystallization to produce optically useful morphologies which express highly reflective crystal faces. Guanine crystals form inside iridosome vesicles within...

Animals precisely control the morphology and assembly of highly reflective guanine crystals to produce diverse optical phenomena used in coloration and vision. However, little is known about how organisms regulate crystallization to produce optically useful crystal morphologies which express highly reflective crystal faces. Guanine crystals form in...

Spectacular colors and visual phenomena in animals are produced by light interference from highly reflective guanine crystals. Little is known about how organisms regulate crystal morphology to tune the optics of these systems. By following guanine crystal formation in developing spiders, we elucidate a crystallization mechanism. Guanine crystalliz...

Highly reflective crystals of the nucleotide base guanine are widely distributed in animal coloration and visual systems. Organisms precisely control the morphology and organization of the crystals to optimize different optical effects, but little is known about how this is achieved. Here we examine a fundamental question that has remained unanswer...

Many animals undergo dramatic changes in colour during development1,2. Changes in predation risk during ontogeny are associated with spectacular switches in defensive colours, typically involving the replacement of skin or the production of new pigment cells3. Ontogenetic colour systems are ideal models for understanding the evolution and formation...

Highly reflective crystals of small organic molecules are the functional materials in a wide variety of optical systems in animals. We present a perspective on this field of organic biomineralization and review evidence for the widespread distribution of organic crystals in animals. These materials were, until recently, largely overlooked principal...

Recent studies of optical reflectors as part of the vision apparatus in the eyes of decapod crustaceans revealed assemblies of nanoscale spherulites - spherical core-shell nanoparticles with radial birefringence. Simulations performed on the system highlighted the advantages of optical anisotropy in enhancing the functionality of these structures....

Photonic structures are responsible for the vivid colors of many animals, and also serve as reflectors and filters in vision. Our recent work has explored the core–shell photonic nanostructures involved in the eyes of several decapod crustaceans, and motivates further research into exploiting spatial variation of birefringence in designing ultrathi...

Various material-strengthening strategies have evolved in the cuticle and the feeding tools of arthropods. Of particular interest is the crustacean mandible, which is frequently reinforced with calcium phosphate, giving a minerology similar to that of human bones and teeth. We report here a biological strengthening method of apatite by Zn substitut...

Reflective assemblies of high refractive index organic crystals are used to produce striking optical phenomena in organisms based on light reflection and scattering. In aquatic animals, organic crystal-based reflectors are used both for image-formation and to increase photon-capture. Here we report the characterization of a poorly-documented reflec...

Spectacular natural optical phenomena are produced by highly reflective assemblies of organic crystals. Here we show how the tapetum reflector in a shrimp eye is constructed from arrays of spherical isoxanthopterin nanoparticles and relate the particle properties to their optical function. The nanoparticles are composed of single-crystal isoxanthop...

Animals use photonic structures in their eyes to form images, enhance sensitivity and provide camouflage. A recent exciting discovery shows that the eyes of some larval mantis shrimp possess photonic crystals that function as color filters to detect bioluminescence.

In a recent paper (Couzi et al. 2018 R. Soc. open sci. 5 , 180058. ( doi:10.1098/rsos.180058 )), we proposed a new phenomenological model to account for the I↔II↔“III” phase sequence in incommensurate n -alkane/urea inclusion compounds, which represents an alternative interpretation to that proposed in work of Toudic et al. In a Comment (Toudic et...

Until recently it was thought that the only optical function of pteridines in biology was to act as light-absorbing pigments, but a recent report by some of us revealed that crystalline isoxanthopterin is a reflector in the eyes of decapod crustaceans. Here, we report the formation of crystalline isoxanthopterin synthetically from the polar dimethy...

The X-ray Birefringence Imaging (XBI) technique, first reported in 2014, is a sensitive method for spatially resolved mapping of the local orientational properties of anisotropic materials. We report the first...

Organic crystals are of primary importance in pharmaceuticals, functional materials, and biological systems; however, organic crystallization mechanisms are not well-understood. It has been recognized that "nonclassical" organic crystallization from solution involving transient amorphous precursors is ubiquitous. Understanding how these precursors...

Vision mechanisms in animals, especially those living in water, are diverse. Many eyes have reflective elements that consist of multilayers of nanometer‐sized crystalline plates, composed of organic molecules. The crystal multilayer assemblies owe their enhanced reflectivity to the high refractive indices of the crystals in preferred crystallograph...

Significance Some aquatic animals use reflectors in their eyes either to form images or to increase photon capture. Guanine is the most widespread molecular component of these reflectors. Here, we show that crystals of isoxanthopterin, a pteridine analog of guanine, form both the image-forming “distal” mirror and the intensity-enhancing tapetum ref...

The eyes of some aquatic animals form images through reflective optics. Shrimp, lobsters, crayfish and prawns possess reflecting superposition compound eyes, composed of thousands of square-faceted eye-units (ommatidia). Mirrors in the upper part of the eye (the distal mirror) reflect light collected from many ommatidia onto the underlying photosen...

Fine-tuned for image formation We typically think of eyes as having one or more lenses for focusing incoming light onto a surface such as our retina. However, light can also be focused using arrays of mirrors, as is commonly done in telescopes. A biological example of this is the scallop, which can have up to 200 reflecting eyes that focus light on...

Fish-scale iridophore cells deposit guanine crystals and assemble them into multilayer reflectors to produce silvery reflectance. The crystal orientation controls the reflective properties of the fish scales, but little is known about the degree of orientation of the guanine crystals and whether this orientation is pre-determined at the level of an...

Guanine crystals are widely used in nature as components of multilayer reflectors. Guanine-based reflective systems found in the copepod cuticle and in the mirror of the scallop eye are unique in that the multilayered reflectors are tiled to form a contiguous packed array. In the copepod cuticle, hexagonal crystals are closely packed to produce bri...

Guanine crystals are widely used in nature as components of multilayer reflectors. Guanine-based reflective systems found in the copepod cuticle and in the mirror of the scallop eye are unique in that the multilayered reflectors are tiled to form a contiguous packed array. In the copepod cuticle, hexagonal crystals are closely packed to produce bri...

We demonstrate that measurements of X-ray linear dichroism are an effective method for determining bond orientations in disordered materials, by reporting the first observation of X-ray linear dichroism at the iodine L1-edge. The iodine-containing molecular solid studied in this work was the inclusion compound containing 4,4′-diiodobiphenyl guest m...

Guanine crystals are widely used in nature to manipulate light. The first part of this feature article explores how organisms are able to construct an extraordinary array of optical "devices" including diffuse scatterers, broadband and narrowband reflectors, tunable photonic crystals, and image-forming mirrors by varying the size, morphology, and a...

The prototypical family of incommensurate composite materials are the n-alkane/urea inclusion compounds, in which n-alkane guest molecules are arranged in a periodic manner along one-dimensional tunnels in a urea host structure, with an incommensurate relationship between the periodicities of the host and guest substructures along the tunnel. We de...

Birefringence has been observed in anisotropic materials transmitting linearly polarized X-ray beams tuned close to an absorption edge of a specific element in the material. Synchrotron bending magnets provide X-ray beams of sufficiently high brightness and cross section for spatially resolved measurements of birefringence. The recently developed X...

The fresh water fish neon tetra has the ability to change the structural color of its lateral stripe in response to a change in the light conditions, from blue-green in the light-adapted state to indigo in the dark-adapted state. The colors are produced by constructive interference of light reflected from stacks of intracellular guanine crystals, f...

The fresh water fish neon tetra has the ability to change the structural color of its lateral stripe in response to a change in the light conditions, from blue-green in the light-adapted state to indigo in the dark-adapted state. The colors are produced by constructive interference of light reflected from stacks of intracellular guanine crystals, f...

In the recently developed technique of X-ray Birefringence Imaging, molecular orientational order in anisotropic materials is studied by exploiting the birefringence of linearly polarized X-rays with energy close to an absorption edge of an element in the material. In the experimental setup, a vertically deflecting high-resolution double-crystal mo...

The X-ray birefringence imaging (XBI) technique, reported very recently, is a sensitive tool for spatially resolved mapping of the local orientational properties of anisotropic materials. In this paper, we report the first XBI measurements on materials that undergo anisotropic molecular dynamics. Using incident linearly polarized X-rays with energy...

The polarizing optical microscope has been used since the 19th century to study the structural anisotropy of materials, based on the phenomenon of optical birefringence. In contrast, the phenomenon of x-ray birefringence has been demonstrated only recently and has been shown to be a sensitive probe of the orientational properties of individual mole...

We report four experimental strategies for controlling the three-dimensional arrangement of molecules in multi-component organic crystals, exploiting confocal Raman microspectrometry to quantify the three-dimensional spatial distributions. Specifically, we focus on controlling the distribution of two types of guest molecule in solid organic inclusi...

Birefringence is the dependence of a material's refractive index on the direction of linear polarization. It induces a phase shift between two perpendicular polarization directions and thus couples linear and circular polarization states. Birefringence in x-ray absorption is as common as linear dichroism but is rarely discussed in the literature. W...

While the phenomenon of birefringence is well-established in the case of visible radiation and is exploited in many fields (e.g., through the use of the polarizing optical microscope), the analogous phenomenon for X-rays has been a virtually neglected topic. Here, we demonstrate the scope and potential for exploiting X-ray birefringence to determin...

This chapter focuses on chemical reactions occurring within solid organic inclusion compounds, encompassing a broad range of inclusion compounds and a wide variety of different reaction types, including reactions of the guest molecules (such as dimerization, polymerization, cyclization, isomerization, and decomposition), reactions involving the hos...

Structural properties of the bromocyclohexane/thiourea inclusion compound have been determined using both single-crystal and powder X-ray diffraction over a range of temperatures above and below a first-order phase transition at 233 K in this material. The results demonstrate marked contrasts to the phase transition behavior in the prototypical cyc...

Whereas the phenomenon of birefringence is well-established and widely applied in the case of linearly polarized visible light (for example, underpinning the use of the polarizing optical microscope), the study of birefringence using linearly polarized X-rays is an essentially unexplored field. To address this issue, we report a material that exhib...

X-Ray diffraction studies reveal that the tunnel inclusion compound formed between 1-tert-butyl-4-iodobenzene and thiourea has an incommensurate relationship between the periodicities of the host and guest substructures along the tunnel axis, representing the first reported case of an incommensurate thiourea inclusion compound.

Wie Baumringe zählen: Ein neue Strategie zur Untersuchung von Kristallwachstumsprozessen beruht auf der retrospektiven Analyse fertiger Kristalle. Die Zusammensetzung der wachsenden Kristalloberflächen variiert während des Kristallwachstums, während die Kristallstruktur unverändert bleibt, und die Zusammensetzungsverteilung im Kristall wird durch k...

Cyclic voltammetry (CV) has been used to investigate the irreversible adsorption of ethyl 2-oxopropanoate (ethyl pyruvate (EtPy)) on well-defined Pt and Pd electrodes. Following dosing of EtPy at open circuit on Pt and Pd surfaces, adsorption was found to be structure sensitive with extensive chemisorption being exhibited at {110} and {100} terrace...