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Crystallization of medium length 1-alcohols in mesoporous silicon: an X-ray diffraction study
Publikationstyp
Journal Article
Date Issued
2008-04-11
Sprache
English
Author(s)
Volume
77
Issue
4
Article Number
042602
Citation
Physical Review E 77 (4): 042602 (2008-03-27)
Publisher DOI
ArXiv ID
Publisher
American Physical Society
The linear 1-alcohols n-C16H33OH, n-C17H35OH, n-C19H37OH have been imbibed and solidified in lined up, tubular mesopores of silicon with 10 nm and 15 nm mean diameters, respectively. X-ray diffraction measurements reveal a set of six discrete orientation states (''domains'') characterized by a perpendicular alignment of the molecules with respect to the long axis of the pores and by a four-fold symmetry about this direction, which coincides with the crystalline symmetry of the Si host. A Bragg peak series characteristic of the formation of bilayers indicates a lamellar structure of the spatially confined alcohol crystals in 15 nm pores. By contrast, no layering reflections could be detected for 10 nm pores. The growth mechanism responsible for the peculiar orientation states is attributed to a nano-scale version of the Bridgman technique of single-crystal growth, where the dominant growth direction is aligned parallelly to the long pore axes. Our observations are analogous to the growth phenomenology encountered for medium length n-alkanes confined in mesoporous silicon (Phys. Rev. E 75, 021607 (2007)) and may further elucidate why porous silicon matrices act as an effective nucleation-inducing material for protein solution crystallization.
Subjects
Biological Physics
Materials Science
Soft Condensed Matter
Chemical Physics
DDC Class
530: Physik