"The architecture of many living creatures combines soft organic tissue with hard inorganic crystal. How do the hard parts develop while up against the soft parts?

"To examine this issue, physicists at Northwestern University have grown an inorganic lattice (barium fluoride, BaF2) directly beneath a two-dimensional crystalline array of organic molecules (a fatty acid).

"Even though the lattice spacings of the BaF2 and the organic monolayer are different, each contributes toward a compromise, the barium fluoride structure by contracting just a bit, and the molecules by expanding their spacing at one end.

"Furthermore, since growing two or more incommensurate materials next to each other (an important operation in the microelectronics industry) is difficult because of the unequal atomic spacings, the new research might in the long run be able to lessen or end the currently stringent need for high vacuum to make epitaxially grown materials." -AIP