Gyroid Single Crystals: Nanostructured Calcite Single Crystals with Gyroid Morphologies (Adv. Mater. 38–39/2009)

Abstract

Single crystals typically assume a crystallographically distinct shape. Many biological organisms, however, synthesize single crystals with an intricate mescoscopic morphology that does not reflect the crystal symmetry. The cover shows a calcite single crystal with a bicontinuous gyroid morphology, which was obtained by calcite nucleation in a self‐assembled polymer matrix in work reported by Ulli Steiner and co‐workers . The characteristic size of the biomimetic structure is ∼30 nm. The pattern in the title is the characteristic 211 plane of the gyroid morphology.