Abstract
ORGANISMS such as diatoms and radiolaria synthesize elaborate biomineral exoskeletons which display hierarchical structures patterned on length scales from less than a micrometre to millimetres. Synthetic materials chemistry, in contrast, has traditionally been able to achieve regular patterning only on microscopic (<10 Å) and more recently1–3 mesoscopic (10–103 Å) length scales. Here we report the synthesis of crystalline, lamellar aluminophosphate structures that are patterned on the submicrometre-to-millimetre scales found in the living world. As in the syntheses of ordered mesoporous solids1–3, our approach involves templating by self-assembled organic aggregates, and we propose that the larger scale of the patterning here arises from the involvement of vesicle templates rather than the micelle-like or bilayer structures thought to be responsible for mesoscale pattern formation1–3.
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Oliver, S., Kuperman, A., Coombs, N. et al. Lamellar aluminophosphates with surface patterns that mimic diatom and radiolarian microskeletons. Nature 378, 47–50 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1038/378047a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/378047a0
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