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Letter

Nature Materials 6, 434–439 (1 June 2007) | doi:10.1038/nmat1912

Hierarchical architectures by synergy between dynamical template self-assembly and biomineralization

Emilie Pouget , Erik Dujardin , Annie Cavalier , Alain Moreac , C|[eacute]|line Val|[eacute]|ry , Val|[eacute]|rie Marchi-Artzner , Thomas Weiss , Anne Renault , Mait|[eacute]| Paternostre & Franck Artzner

Diatoms, shells, bones and teeth are exquisite examples of well-defined structures, arranged from nanometre to macroscopic length scale, produced by natural biomineralization using organic templates to control the growth of the inorganic phase. Although strategies mimicking Nature have partially succeeded in synthesizing human-designed bio-inorganic composite materials, our limited understanding of fundamental mechanisms has so far kept the level of hierarchical complexity found in biological organisms out of the chemists|[rsquo]| reach.