Oriented materials attract considerable attention since thay have the potential to exhibit collective properties which exceed those of the isotropic species by several orders of magnitude. Much success has already been achieved with organic materials, e.g. liquid crystals, conducting polymers, but reliable protocols for the construction of organised crystal micro-architectures from inorganic solids have yet to be established. Given the potential advantages of translating molecular properties (optical, piezoelectric, catalytic) to the macroscopic scale strategies for the construction of hierarchical crystal assemblies, crystal tectonics, merit particular consideration.This crystal tectonics route to the synthesis of anisotropic inorganic materials remains entirely untested, but draws much of its inspiration from the study of deterministic self-organisation in biological systems. Such self-organisation relies on a series of highly specific “host-guest”, ligandreceptor type interactions (more typically cited examples of such include, enzyme-substrate-cofactor binding, antibody-antigen complexation, and triplet/base matching during polypeptide synthesis). The biogenic formation of hierarchical inorganic arrays, biomineralization, is remarkable not only for its control of crystallisation to yield solids of uniform size and unusual habit, but equally for the construction of elaborate functional micro-architectures from these biosolids.
