Nano-Patterning of Diffraction Gratings on Human Hair for Cosmetic Purposes

A method is presented for nano-patterning a diffraction grating on human hair with a focused ion beam. Strands of brown hair are patterned with hyperbolas and Archimedean spirals whose pitches range from 540 nm to 1040 nm. Exposure of the hair strands to white light at various incident angles demonstrates that light of varying wavelengths is diffracted by the diffraction gratings. The diffraction causes the brown strands of hair to reflect light from the entire range of visible light.