Assessing the influence of structural disorder on the plant epidermal cells' optical properties: a numerical analysis.

Many plant surfaces, such as rose petals, display lens-like epidermal cells that are known to assist the collection and focusing of the sunlight. Those cells form an array with a high degree of structural irregularities including disorder in the height and orientation of the cells, and in their arrangement. In this study, we numerically analyze the influence of structural disorder on the optical properties of a 3D modeled epidermal cell array using ray tracing simulations.

Assessment of crystal quality and unit cell orientation in epitaxial Cu₂ZnSnSe₄ layers using polarized Raman scattering.

We use polarization-resolved Raman spectroscopy to assess the crystal quality of epitaxial kesterite layers. It is demonstrated for the example of epitaxial Cu₂ZnSnSe₄ layers on GaAs(001) that "standing" and "lying" kesterite unit cell orientations (c'-axis parallel / perpendicular to the growth direction) can be distinguished by the application of Raman tensor analysis. From the appearance of characteristic intensity oscillations when the sample is rotated one can distinguish polycrystalline and epitaxial layers.