Product piracy from nature: biomimetic microstructures and interfaces for high-performance optics

Micro and nanostructured optical components are evolved over millions of years in nature and show a wide application range as microlens arrays, diffractive or subwavelength structures in manifold biological systems. In this contribution we discuss the advantages and challenges to transfer the concepts based on the nature models to increase the performance of high-end optical systems in applications such as beam shaping and imaging. Especially we discuss the application of sophisticated statistical microlens arrays and diffractive structures in different fields such as lithography, inspection or for medical instruments. Additionally we focus on anti-reflection coatings which are commonly used to suppress reflection of light from the surface of optical components in the visible range. We report an innovative approach for the fast and cost-efficient fabrication of highly UV transmissive, anti-reflective optical interfaces based on self assembled gold nanoparticles