Bell Labs Scientists Create World's First Micro-Patterned Crystals Inspired by Bioengineering Found in Nature.

Business Editors

MURRAY HILL, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 21, 2003

Study of how nature designs crystals in sea organisms may be

important to nanotechnology

Borrowing an approach from Mother Nature, scientists from Lucent Technologies' (NYSE: LU) Bell Labs have created high-quality, complex-shaped crystals that could potentially find applications in communications networks and other devices in the future.

The ornate crystals of calcite are the latest product of an emerging field of science known as biomimetics, which takes engineering principals from the natural world and applies them to man-made materials and technologies. Described in a research paper in today's issue of the journal Science, the crystals are fabricated by a novel technique that involves depositing the mineral in such a way that each single crystal contains intricate microscopic patterns. It is an approach that may have broad implications for materials science and nanotechnology.

"I have always been fascinated with nature's ability to perfect materials," said Joanna Aizenberg, the Bell Labs materials scientist who led the research. "The more we study biological organisms, the more we realize how much we can learn from them. We recently discovered that nature makes excellent micro-patterned crystals, and we decided to see if we could copy the natural approach in the lab, since this technique may be useful in nanotechnology."

About two years ago, Aizenberg and her colleagues made the surprising discovery that thousands of calcite crystals spread throughout the exoskeletons of brittlestars, starfish-like marine invertebrates, collectively form an unusual kind of compound eye for the animals. The brittlestar's calcite microlenses expertly compensate for birefringence and spherical aberration, two common types of distortions in lenses. This led the Bell Labs scientists to attempt to mimic nature's success and design crystals based on the brittlestar model, with the ultimate goal of building complexes arrays of microlenses like the brittlestar's.

Today lenses are typically made using a "top down" approach, in which a piece of glass is ground down to a lens' exact specifications. The brittlestar, on the other hand, makes its microlenses using a "bottom up" approach, in which successive layers of calcite are deposited onto an organic template in intricate patterns to form perfect crystalline lenses at the temperature of seawater.

"This is an excellent example where we can learn from Nature," said Cherry Murray, senior vice president of physical sciences research at Bell Labs. "In this case, a relatively simple organism has a solution to a very complex problem in integrated optics and materials design. By studying the brittlestar, we can learn about low-cost ways of forming single crystals in complex shapes at low temperatures. While many years from commercial use, this understanding could be very important to fabrication of nano-patterned materials."

Aizenberg and colleagues David Muller, John Grazul and Don Hamann studied biomineralization principles and developed a new crystallization approach that allowed them to directly fabricate single crystals of calcite that were about one-tenth of a centimeter across, with patterns less than ten micrometers across, which is approximately one-tenth the diameter of a human hair.

The new Bell Labs approach may revolutionize how crystals are made in the future for a wide variety of applications. Single crystals patterned at the micron scale or smaller and integrated into opto-electronic circuits are important components in various electronic, sensory and optical devices.

Bell Labs is the leading source of new communications technologies. It has generated nearly 30,000 patents since 1925 and has played a pivotal role in inventing or perfecting key communications technologies, including transistors, digital networking and signal processing, lasers and fiber-optic communications systems, communications satellites, cellular telephony, electronic switching of calls, touch-tone dialing, and modems. Bell Labs scientists have received six Nobel Prizes in Physics, nine U.S. Medals of Science and eight U.S. Medals of Technology. For more information about Bell Labs, visit its Web site at http://www.bell-labs.com.

Lucent Technologies, headquartered in Murray Hill, N.J., USA, designs and delivers networks for the world's largest communications service providers. Backed by Bell Labs research and development, Lucent relies on its strengths in mobility, optical, data and voice networking technologies as well as software and services to develop next-generation networks. The company's systems, services and software are designed to help customers quickly deploy and better manage their networks and create new, revenue-generating services that help businesses and consumers. For more information on Lucent Technologies, visit its Web site at http://www.lucent.com.