Titania single crystals with a curved surface.
Owing to its scientific and technological importance, crystallization as a ubiquitous phenomenon has been widely studied over centuries. Well-developed single crystals are generally enclosed by regular flat facets spontaneously to form polyhedral morphologies because of the well-known self-confinement principle for crystal growth. However, in nature, complex single crystalline calcitic skeleton of biological organisms generally has a curved external surface formed by specific interactions between organic moieties and biocompatible minerals. Here we show a new class of crystal surface of TiO₂, which is enclosed by quasi continuous high-index microfacets and thus has a unique truncated biconic morphology. Such single crystals may open a new direction for crystal growth study since, in principle, crystal growth rates of all facets between two normal {101} and {011} crystal surfaces are almost identical. In other words, the facet with continuous Miller index can exist because of the continuous curvature on the crystal surface.
Key Laboratory for Ultrafine Materials of Ministry of Education, School of Materials Science and Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, 130 Meilong Road, Shanghai 200237, China.
Shuang
S
Yang
Key Laboratory for Advanced Materials, Centre for Computational Chemistry and Research Institute of Industrial Catalysis, East China University of Science and Technology, 130 Meilong Road, Shanghai 200237, China.
Bing Xing
BX
Yang
Key Laboratory for Ultrafine Materials of Ministry of Education, School of Materials Science and Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, 130 Meilong Road, Shanghai 200237, China.
Long
L
Wu
Key Laboratory for Ultrafine Materials of Ministry of Education, School of Materials Science and Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, 130 Meilong Road, Shanghai 200237, China.
Yu Hang
YH
Li
Centre for Clean Environment and Energy, Gold Coast Campus, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Queensland 4222, Australia.
Porun
P
Liu
Centre for Clean Environment and Energy, Gold Coast Campus, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Queensland 4222, Australia.
Huijun
H
Zhao
Key Laboratory for Advanced Materials, Centre for Computational Chemistry and Research Institute of Industrial Catalysis, East China University of Science and Technology, 130 Meilong Road, Shanghai 200237, China.
Yan Yan
YY
Yu
Key Laboratory for Advanced Materials, Centre for Computational Chemistry and Research Institute of Industrial Catalysis, East China University of Science and Technology, 130 Meilong Road, Shanghai 200237, China.
Xue Qing
XQ
Gong
1] Key Laboratory for Ultrafine Materials of Ministry of Education, School of Materials Science and Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, 130 Meilong Road, Shanghai 200237, China [2] Centre for Clean Environment and Energy, Gold Coast Campus, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Queensland 4222, Australia.
Hua Gui
HG
Yang