Visualization of the effect of additives on the nanostructures of individual bio-inspired calcite crystals
Abstract
Soluble additives provide a versatile strategy for controlling crystallization processes, enabling selection of properties including crystal sizes, morphologies, and structures. The additive species can also be incorporated within the crystal lattice, leading for example to enhanced mechanical properties. However, while many techniques are available for analyzing particle shape and structure, it remains challenging to characterize the structural inhomogeneities and defects introduced into individual crystals by these additives, where these govern many important material properties. Here, we exploit Bragg coherent diffraction imaging to visualize the effects of soluble additives on the internal structures of individual crystals on the nanoscale. Investigation of bio-inspired calcite crystals grown in the presence of lysine or magnesium ions reveals that while a single dislocation is observed in calcite crystals grown in the presence of lysine, magnesium ions generate complex strain patterns. Indeed, in addition to the expected homogeneous solid solution of Mg ions in the calcite lattice, we observe two zones comprising alternating lattice contractions and relaxation, where comparable alternating layers of high magnesium calcite have been observed in many magnesium calcite biominerals. Such insight into the structures of nanocomposite crystals will ultimately enable us to understand and control their properties.
Citation
Ihli , J , Clark , J N , Kanwal , N , Kim , Y Y , Holden , M A , Harder , R J , Tang , C C , Ashbrook , S E , Robinson , I K & Meldrum , F C 2019 , ' Visualization of the effect of additives on the nanostructures of individual bio-inspired calcite crystals ' , Chemical Science , vol. 10 , no. 4 , pp. 1176-1185 . https://doi.org/10.1039/c8sc03733g
Publication
Chemical Science
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
2041-6520Type
Journal article
Description
This work was supported by an FP7 advanced grant from the European Research Council (JNC and IKR), by an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Leadership Fellowship (FCM and JI, EP/H005374/1) and EPSRC grants EP/N002423/1 (FCM, YYK and MAH), and EP/M003027/1 (FCM and MAH). SEA would like to thank the ERC (EU FP7 Consolidator Grant 614290 “EXONMR”) and the Royal Society and Wolfson Foundation for a merit award. Parts of the experimental work was carried out at Advanced Photon Source Beamline 34-ID-C, built with funds from the US National Science Foundation under Grant DMR-9724294 and operated by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under Contract DE-AC02-06CH11357.Collections
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