Highly birefringent vaterite microspheres: production, characterization and applications for optical...

This paper reports on a simple synthesis and characterization of highly birefringent vaterite microspheres, which are composed of 20-30 nm sized nanocrystalls. Scanning electron microscopy shows a quite disordered assembly of nanocrystals within the microspheres. However, using optical tweezers, the effective birefringence of the microspheres was measured to be Deltan = 0.06, which compares to Deltan = 0.1 of vaterite single crystals. This suggests a very high orientation of the nanocrystals within the microspheres. A hyperbolic model of the direction of the optical axis throughout the vaterite spherulite best fits the experimental data. Results from polarized light microscopy further confirm the hyperbolic model.