Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 7
Modeling of Biomineralization and Structural
Color Biomimetics by Controlled Colloidal
Assembly
XiangYangLiuandYingYingDiao
Abstract This chapter aims to give an overview on the recent progress of the
electrically controlled colloidal assembly, as an experimental modeling system
to study the crystallization-related biomineralization processes. The controlled
colloidal assembly allows us not only to visualize some “atomic” details of the
nucleation and surface process of crystallization, but also to treat quantitatively the
previous models to such an extent that has never been achieved before by other
approaches. As such, the crystallization processes were quantitatively examined at
the single particle level, and the related kinetics, i.e., the kinetics of nucleation,
multistep crystallization, supersaturation-driven structural mismatch nucleation,
etc., can be verified from the single particle level. The results acquired can transfer
our knowledge on biomineralization to a new phase. Apart from the fundamental
aspects, the controlled colloidal crystallization has been attracted significant atten-
tion in many applications. In this concern, the application of colloidal crystallization
to the fabrication of photonic crystals and the biomimetics of natural structural
colors will be discussed.
Keywords Biomineralization ￿ Assembly of biominerals ￿ Supersatura-
tion ￿ Nucleation ￿ homogeneous nucleation ￿ heterogeneous nucleation ￿
Supersaturation-driven interfacial structural mismatch ￿ Shadow effect ￿ Colloidal
assembly
￿
Photonic
crystal
￿
Structural
color
￿
Biomimetics
￿
Double
reflection ￿ Silk fabrics ￿ Multistep crystallization
X.Y. Liu ( )
College of Materials, Xiamen University, 422 Si Ming Nan Road, 361005 Xiamen, P.R. China
e-mail: phyliuxy@nus.edu.sg
Department of Physics and Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, National University of
Singapore, 2 Science Drive 3 117542, Singapore
Y. Y. D i a o
College of Materials, Xiamen University, 422 Si Ming Nan Road, 361005 Xiamen, P.R. China
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