Crystallographic Mismatch Branching

The pattern formation of fiber networks to be discussed as follows is controlled by a completely new mechanism, the so-called crystallographic mismatch branching mechanism. The patterns produced by this mechanism can have both the microscopic interfacial anisotropy and the characteristic of fractals, hi particular, the evolution of the pattern is supersaturation- and impurity-dependent. 

As to be discussed in Sect. 4.1, the crystallographic mismatch branching can be utilized to construct self-organized interconnecting fiber network structures/patterns, so as to engineer supramolecular fimctional soft materials. 

In this section, we will focus on the formation of fibrous networks/patterns via the (wide angle) crystallographic mismatch branching. Actually, the typical patterns that occurred owing to the (wide angle) crystallographic mismatch branching are shown in Fig. 5b and c. 

The key question to be addressed is why and how crystallographic mismatch branching takes place. Obviously, the crystallographic mismatch branching takes place via the supersatmation-driven interfacial structural mismatch or the crystallographic mismatch nucleation and growth (Fig. 5). 

The occurrence of crystallographic mismatch branching is controlled by the following two steps (1) the growth of the surface of parent crystals (2) the crystallographic mismatch nucleation on the surface. 

Fig. 8 The correlation between ln[ )(A/r/ r)" ] and l/ Afi/kT) for a lanosta-8,24-dien-3/3-ol 24,25-dihydrolanosterol = 56 44 (L-Dffl,)/di-(2-ethylhex)d phthalate) (C8Hi7COO)2 (C6H4) (DIOP) system with 0.01% ethylene/vinyl acetate copolymer (EVACP) at 20 °C. The linear relationship confirms the governing role of the crystallographic mismatch branching mechanism in the formation of organized interconnecting fiber networks. T = 298.15 K, X = 0.026. The supersaturation difference A/x/kT is obtained by changing the molar fraction of the solute in the solutions [18]...

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