Self-assembly of amorphous calcium carbonate microlens arrays

Kyubock Lee, Wolfgang Wagermaier, Admir Masic, Krishna P. Kommareddy, Mathieu Bennet, Inderchand Manjubala, Seung-Woo Lee, Seung B. Park, Helmut Cölfen and Peter Fratzl ()
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Kyubock Lee: Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces
Wolfgang Wagermaier: Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces
Admir Masic: Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces
Krishna P. Kommareddy: Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces
Mathieu Bennet: Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces
Inderchand Manjubala: Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces
Seung-Woo Lee: Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources
Seung B. Park: KAIST
Helmut Cölfen: Physical Chemistry, University of Konstanz
Peter Fratzl: Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces

Nature Communications, 2012, vol. 3, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract Biological materials are often based on simple constituents and grown by the principle of self-assembly under ambient conditions. In particular, biomineralization approaches exploit efficient pathways of inorganic material synthesis. There is still a large gap between the complexity of natural systems and the practical utilization of bioinspired formation mechanisms. Here we describe a simple self-assembly route leading to a CaCO3 microlens array, somewhat reminiscent of the brittlestars' microlenses, with uniform size and focal length, by using a minimum number of components and equipment at ambient conditions. The formation mechanism of the amorphous CaCO3 microlens arrays was elucidated by confocal Raman spectroscopic imaging to be a two-step growth process mediated by the organic surfactant. CaCO3 microlens arrays are easy to fabricate, biocompatible and functional in amorphous or more stable crystalline forms. This shows that advanced optical materials can be generated by a simple mineral precipitation.

Date: 2012
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1720

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