Alternate deposition of oriented calcite and amino acid layer on calcite substrates

Material synthesis inspired by novel nacre architecture and mechanism is popular and has attracted more and more attention. In this paper, iso-oriented calcite tablets/layers and amino acid layers were formed alternately on calcite wafers. It is interesting that the neonatal calcite tablets/layers have the same crystal orientation with their inorganic substrates through amino acid layers. It is quite possible that the amino acid layers in this study could transfer crystal orientation from formed inorganic layers to neighboring neonatal layers due to their fixed and appropriate structures, which may imply the process of nacre formation, and the role of aligned organic matrix sheets in nacre. Moreover, it could provide a new way to produce oriented calcite tablets/layers.