Structural colorations originate from self-organized microstructures, which interact with light in a complex way to produce brilliant colors seen everywhere in nature. Research in this field is extremely new and has been rapidly growing in the last 10 years, because the elaborate structures created in nature can now be fabricated through various types of nanotechnologies. Indeed, a fundamental book covering this field from biological, physical, and engineering viewpoints has long been expected.Coloring in nature comes mostly from inherent colors of materials, though it sometimes has a purely physical origin such as diffraction or interference of light. The latter, called structural color or iridescence, has long been a problem of scientific interest. Recently, structural colors have attracted great interest because various photonic architectures, now developing in modern technologies, have been spontaneously created in the self-organization process and have been extensively used as one of the important visual functions. In this book, the fundamental optical properties underlying structural colors are explained, and these mysteries of nature are surveyed from the viewpoint of biological diversity and according to their sophisticated structures. The book proposes a general principle of structural colors based on the structural hierarchy and presents up-to-date applications.

Structural colors in living beings are one of the most marvelous arts that nature has ever created during the long history of the evolution. These colors originate from surprisingly sophisticated microstructures which gave rise to a new field of research bionanophotonics. This book occupies a special position among similar books in the field of photonics, because it places a special emphasis on the detailed physical basis for the optical processes that are deeply connected with the structural colors, and also on the biological and physiological bases concerning what a variety of animals are living and how they are seen by human vision. In addition, it contains ample examples for the recent technological advances in photonics that are rooted in the nature.

Patterns and their formations appear throughout nature, and are studied to analyze different problems in science and make predictions across a wide range of disciplines including biology, physics, mathematics, chemistry, material science, and nanoscience. With the emergence of nanoscience and the ability for researchers and scientists to study living systems at the biological level, pattern formation research has become even more essential.

This book is an accessible first of its kind guide for scientists, researchers, engineers, and students who require a general introduction to this research area, in order to gain a deeper analytical understanding of the most recent observations and experiments by top researchers in physics. "Pattern Formations" describes the most up-to-date status of this developing field and analyzes the physical phenomena behind a wide range of interesting topics commonly known in the scientific community.

The study of pattern formations as a research field will continue to grow as scientists expand their understanding of naturally occurring patterns and mimic nature to help solve complex problems. This research area is becoming more highly recognized due to its contributions to signal processing, computer analysis, image processing, complex networks development, advancements in optics and photonics, crystallography, metallurgy, drug delivery (chemotherapy) and the further understanding of gene regulation.

- The only introductory reference book which places special emphasis on the theoretical analyses of experiments in this rapidly growing field of pattern formation

- A wide range of physical applications make this book highly interdisciplinary

- Explanations of observations and experiments deepen the readers understanding of this developing research field