TY - JOUR AB - Oriented attachment has created a great debate about the description of crystal growth throughout the last decade. This aggregation-based model has successfully described biomineralization processes as well as forms of inorganic crystal growth, which could not be explained by classical crystal growth theory. Understanding the nanoparticle growth is essential since physical properties, such as the magnetic behavior, are highly dependent on the microstructure, morphology and composition of the inorganic crystals. In this work, the underlying nanoparticle growth of cobalt ferrite nanoparticles in a bioinspired synthesis was studied. Bioinspired syntheses have sparked great interest in recent years due to their ability to influence and alter inorganic crystal growth and therefore tailor properties of nanoparticles. In this synthesis, a short synthetic version of the protein MMS6, involved in nanoparticle formation within magnetotactic bacteria, was used to alter the growth of cobalt ferrite. We demonstrate that the bioinspired nanoparticle growth can be described by the oriented attachment model. The intermediate stages proposed in the theoretical model, including primary-building-block-like substructures as well as mesocrystal-like structures, were observed in HRTEM measurements. These structures display regions of substantial orientation and possess the same shape and size as the resulting discs. An increase in orientation with time was observed in electron diffraction measurements. The change of particle diameter with time agrees with the recently proposed kinetic model for oriented attachment. DA - 2014 DO - 10.3762/bjnano.5.23 KW - growth KW - oriented attachment KW - polypeptide KW - nanoparticle KW - cobalt ferrite nanoparticles KW - bioinspired synthesis LA - eng M2 - 210 PY - 2014 SN - 2190-4286 SP - 210-218 T2 - Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology TI - Oriented attachment explains cobalt ferrite nanoparticle growth in bioinspired syntheses UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0070-pub-26737313 Y2 - 2024-11-22T05:26:59 ER -