Diatoms are pretty cool. Their frustules (shells) are nanostructured pure amorphous silica, which gives them interesting and possibly useful optical properties

Diatoms are pretty cool. Their frustules (shells) are nanostructured pure amorphous silica, which gives them interesting and possibly useful optical properties: https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2020/fd/d0fd00031k https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2020/fd/d0fd0... https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsfs.2018.0031 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsfs.2018.003... Some pictures of the frustrules, with some words and diagrams too: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2018.00125/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2018.0012...