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Fibre-Optical Features of a Glass Sponge Some Superior Technological Secrets Have Come to Light from a Deep-Sea Organism

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Fibre-Optical Features of a Glass Sponge Some Superior Technological Secrets Have Come to Light from a Deep-Sea Organism brief communications Fibre-optical features of a glass sponge Some superior technological secrets have come to light from a deep-sea organism. odern technology cannot yet com- between the spicule and air (Fig.1d,right). shows, for example, that sodium ions are pete with some of the sophisticated These biological fibres therefore resem- present throughout the spicules,particularly Moptical systems possessed by bio- ble commercial telecommunication fibres, in the core. Although sodium ions (and logical organisms1–3. Here we show that in that they are made of the same material many other additives) are desirable fibre- the spicules of the deep-sea ‘glass’ sponge and have comparable dimensions, as well as optic dopants, they present a manufacturing Euplectella have remarkable fibre-optical similar refractive indices for the high-index challenge, for example by causing devitrifi- properties, which are surprisingly similar to core and a low-index cladding. They also cation at high temperatures. those of commercial telecommunication function as efficient single-mode, few-mode Our results suggest the intriguing possi- fibres — except that the spicules themselves or multi-mode waveguides, depending on bility that the spicules of Euplectella,beyond are formed under normal ambient condi- the optical launch conditions. structural anchorage support, could also tions and have some technological advan- The principal weakness of commercial provide a highly effective fibre-optical net- tages over man-made versions. optical fibres is that they fracture as a result of work, which may be useful in distributing The skeleton of the hexactinellid class of crack growth, whereas the spicules’ lamellar light in its deep-sea environment. This illu- sponges is constructed from amorphous, layers, connected by organic ligands at the minating sponge should also shed light on hydrated silica3–6. Euplectella builds an intri- fibre’s exterior, provide an effective crack- low-temperature, biologically inspired pro- cate cage (Fig. 1a), which typically houses a arresting mechanism and enhance fracture cesses that could give rise to better fibre- mating pair of shrimp (hence its nickname, toughness6,8,9. Another superior feature of optical materials and networks. ‘Venus flower-basket’) and is composed of a the spicules is their formation under ambi- Vikram C. Sundar*, Andrew D. Yablon†, lattice of fused spicules4 that provide extend- ent conditions, a process that is regulated John L. Grazul*, Micha Ilan‡, ed structural support. by organic molecules10,11. This ambient- Joanna Aizenberg* A network of anchorage spicules temperature process, unlike the high-tem- *Bell Laboratories/Lucent Technologies, (basalia) extend outwards in a crown-like perature manufacture of man-made fibres, Murray Hill, New Jersey 07974, USA formation. These spicules are generally 5–15 allows the structure to be doped with special- e-mail: [email protected] cm long and 40–70 Ȗm in diameter; their ized impurities that improve the refractive †OFS, Murray Hill, New Jersey 07974, USA native cross-section is homogeneous and index and therefore the wave-guiding prop- ‡Department of Zoology, Tel Aviv University, they have no structural boundaries. Under erties. Our preliminary elemental analysis Tel Aviv 69978, Israel stress or etching,the spicules reveal a charac- teristic layered morphology6 and cross-sec- a b tional variations in composition that appear as three distinct regions: a pure silica core of about 2 Ȗm in diameter that encloses an organic filament; a central cylinder that has the greatest organic content of the three; and a striated shell that has a gradually decreas- ing organic content and which is glued together by organic films (Fig.1b). We anticipated that the spicules’rich sub- structure should be reflected in their optical properties as well. Indeed, interferometric c refractive-index profiling7 revealed three regions that correspond to the three regions of structural composition (Fig. 1c): a core with high refractive index that is comparable to (or higher than) that of vitreous silica; a cylinder of lower refractive index that sur- 1.46 core rounds the core; and an oscillating pattern with progressively increasing refractive 1.45 index at the outer part of the spicule. Figure 1 Structure and fibre-optical properties of spicules in the 1.44 cladding cladding To determine whether this typical ‘core- sponge Euplectella. a, The glass sponge, showing the basket-like cladding’ refractive-index profile endows cage structure and basalia spicules (arrow). Scale bar, 5 cm. 1.43 b, Mechanically cleaved spicules show three structural regions. OF, Refractive index the spicules with wave-guiding properties, 1.42 SS CC SS we investigated their transmission charac- organic filament; SS, outer striated shell; CC, central cylinder. Inset: –30–20 –10 0 10 20 30 teristics. We found that embedded spicules smooth cross-section of a stress-free spicule. c, Interferogram Radial position (µm) act as single- or few-mode waveguides — (top) and corresponding refractive-index profile (bottom) of a that is, light waves are effectively confined spicule. Dashed line indicates the refractive index of vitreous silica. d to the core,where refractive index is highest d, Wave guiding by individual spicules upon coupling with white (Fig. 1d, left). When light was coupled into light. Spicules embedded in epoxide act as single-mode or few- free-standing spicules, they functioned as mode waveguides (left); free-standing spicules act as multi-mode multi-mode fibres, with most of the waveguides (right). Scale bar, 10 Ȗm. Further details are available light filling the entire cladding, because from the authors. of the enhanced refractive-index contrast 899 NATURE | VOL 424 | 21 AUGUST 2003 | www.nature.com/nature © 2003 Nature Publishing Group brief communications 1. Aizenberg, J., Tkachenko, A., Weiner, S., Addadi, L. & Hendler, should yield the same transition probability histories of countries where two languages G. Nature 412, 819–822 (2001). as a swap in the fraction of speakers and rel- coexist today generally involve split popu- 2. McPhedran, R. C. et al. Aust. J. Chem. 54, 241–244 (2001). ǃ ǁ ǁ ative status; thus Pxy(x,s) Pyx(1 x,1 s). lations that lived without significant inter- 3. Cattaneo-Vietti, R. et al. Nature 383, 397–398 (1996). We also assume that no one will adopt a action, effectively in separate, monolingual 4. Perry, C. C. & Keeling-Tucker, T. J. Biol. Inorg. Chem. 5, 537–550 ǃ (2000). language that has no speakers (Pyx(0,s) 0) societies. Only recently have these commu- 5. Simpson, T. L. The Cell Biology of Sponges (Springer, New York, ǃ or no status (Pyx(x,0) 0), and that Pyx is nities begun to mix, allowing language 1984). smooth and monotonically increasing in competition to begin. 6. Sarikaya, M. et al. J. Mater. Res. 16, 1420–1428 (2001). 7. Marcuse, D. Principles of Optical Fiber Measurements both arguments. So what can be done to prevent the rapid (Academic, New York, 1981). These mild assumptions imply that equa- disintegration of our world’s linguistic 8. Clegg,W.J.,Kendall,K.,Alford,N.M.,Button,T.W.& Birchall, tion (1) generically has three fixed points.Of heritage? The example of Quebec French J. D. Nature 347, 455–457 (1990). these, only xǃ0 and xǃ1 are stable. The demonstrates that language decline can be 9. Kamat, S., Su, X., Ballarini, R. & Heuer, A. H. Nature 405, 1036–1040 (2000). model therefore predicts that two languages slowed by strategies such as policy-making, 10. Cha, J. N., Stucky, G. D., Morse, D. E. & Deming, T. J. Nature cannot coexist stably — one will eventually education and advertising, in essence 403, 289–292 (2000). drive the other to extinction. increasing an endangered language’s status. 11. Kroger, N., Lorenz, S., Brunner, E. & Sumper, M. Science 298, 584–586 (2002). To test our model, we collected data on An extension to equation (1) that incor- Competing financial interests: declared none. the number of speakers of endangered lan- porates such control on s through active guages in 42 regions of Peru,Scotland,Wales, feedback does indeed show stabilization Bolivia, Ireland and Alsace-Lorraine, four of a bilingual fixed point. Linguistics instances of which are shown in Fig. 1.We fit Daniel M. Abrams, Steven H. Strogatz the model’s solutions to the data, assuming Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, Modelling the dynamics transition functions of the forms Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA P (x,s)ǃcx as and P (x,s)ǃc(1ǁx)a(1ǁs). e-mail: [email protected] of language death yx xy Unexpectedly, the exponent a was found to 1. Krauss, M. Language 68, 4–10 (1992). housands of the world’s languages are be roughly constant across cultures, with 2. Nowak, M. A., Komarova, N. L. & Niyogi, P. Nature 417, ǃ DŽ DŽ 611–617 (2002). vanishing at an alarming rate, with a 1.31 0.25 (mean standard deviation; 3. Chomsky, N. A. Syntactic Structures (Mouton, T90% of them being expected to disap- further details are available from the New York, 1957). pear with the current generation1.Here we authors). 4. Kroch, A. Lang. Variat. Change 1, 199–244 (1989). develop a simple model of language compe- Of the remaining parameters, status, s,is 5. Hawkins, J. A. & Gell-Mann, M. 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