Self-organized novel morphologies of lamellar aluminophosphates

Abstract

Ordered lamellar aluminophosphates (LAP) display a shell-like shape with novel surface features patterned on the micrometer scale. The resulting materials represent replicas of the architecture of self-assembled organic–inorganic microemulsions, suggesting that the surface patterns arise from the emulsification of the oil-swollen tails and hydrated head groups in DDP (decylammonium dihydrogen phosphate) layers.