LAMELLAR ALUMINOPHOSPHATES WITH SURFACE PATTERNS THAT MIMIC DIATOM AND RADIOLARIAN MICROSKELETONS

ORGANISMS such as diatoms and radiolaria synthesize elaborate biominer al exoskeletons which display hierarchical structures patterned on len gth scales from less than a micrometre to millimetres. Synthetic mater ials chemistry, in contrast, has traditionally been able to achieve re gular patterning only on microscopic (<10 Angstrom) and more recently( 1-3) mesoscopic (10-10(3) Angstrom) length scales. Here we report the synthesis of crystalline, lamellar aluminophosphate structures that ar e patterned on the submicrometre-to-millimetre scales found in the liv ing world. As in the syntheses of ordered mesoporous solids(1-3), our approach involves templating by self-assembled organic aggregates, and we propose that the larger scale of the patterning here arises from t he involvement of vesicle templates rather than the micelle-like or bi layer structures thought to be responsible for mesoscale pattern forma tion(1-3).