Observation of an organic-inorganic lattice match during biomimetic growth of (001)-oriented calcite crystals under floating sulfate monolayers

Sumit Kewalramani, Kim Kyungil, Benjamin Stripe, Guennadi Evmenenko, Geoffrey H.B. Dommett, Pulak Dutta*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

23 Scopus citations

Abstract

Macromolecular layers rich in amino acids and with some sulfated polysaccharides appear to control oriented calcite growth in living organisms. Calcite crystals nucleating under floating acid monolayers have been found to be unoriented on average. We have now observed directly, using in situ grazing incidence X-ray diffraction, that there is a 1:1 match between the monolayer unit cell and the unit cell of the (001) plane of calcite. Thus, sulfate head groups appear to act as templates for the growth of (001)-oriented calcite crystals, which is the orientation commonly found in biominerals.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)10579-10582
Number of pages4
JournalLangmuir
Volume24
Issue number19
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 7 2008

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Condensed Matter Physics
  • Spectroscopy
  • General Materials Science
  • Surfaces and Interfaces
  • Electrochemistry

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