Nanostructured diffusion-limited-aggregation crystal pattern formation in a reactive microemulsion system

Rohit Srivastava and P K Srivastava

Abstract

Nanostructured diffusion-limited-aggregation (DLA) crystal pattern formation in microemulsion consisting of water, styrene, cetyltrimethylammonium chloride (CTACl), potassium persulphate and an oscillating Belousov–Zhabotinsky (BZ) reactant is reported. A variety of spatiotemporal patterns like concentric wave, spatial (stripe) and chaotic patterns appear. A colloidal phase composed of numerous nano-sized particles has been observed. The solid phase nucleation has been found to occur in the colloidal phase and has been found to grow in a symmetric crystal pattern with the progress of the reaction finally exhibiting DLA structures. We show that the formation of a nanostructured DLA crystal pattern is governed by spatial structures emerging in the BZ microemulsion system. Without any spatial structure in the microemulsion system only hydrogel of high viscosity is formed. A nano-sized branched crystal pattern was formed with a particle diameter in the range of 60–100 nm, as evident by transmission electron microscope, powder x-ray diffraction and particle size analyser studies