Template-Dependent Morphogenesis of Oriented Calcite Crystals in the Presence of Magnesium Ions

Abstract

This paper presents a study of the morphogenesis of oriented crystals caused by solution growth modifiers. Self-assembled monolayers of HS-(CH2)15-CO2H, HS-(CH2)10-CO2H, HS- (CH2)11-SO3H, HS-(CH2)11-OH supported on gold that induce the oriented nucleation of calcite from the (013), (113), (106)+(1.0.12) and (104) planes respectively, were used as templates for calcite crystallization from solutions containing Mg ions (Mg/Ca = 0-4). We show that when crystal growth in the presence of an additive is coupled with the control over the nucleation process, the formation of crystal arrays with extremely uniform size, shape, facets and orientation is achieved. This study for the first time demonstrates that crystal morphogenesis depends on the orientation of the crystals on the surface, such that crystals grown on different substrates exhibit uniform, but template-specific characteristics. The possible mechanisms of this new phenomenon – an additive-induced morphogenesis of differently oriented crystals – are discussed. We believe that this approach can be used as a potent crystallization strategy that would allow the synthesis of homogeneous crystals with finely-tailored morphologies.