Deformation Measurements on Thin Clay Tactoids

Applying a synthetic fluorohectorite that shows giant lateral extensions, a microscopic bending test is performed using atomic force microscopy (see image). Due to the significantly weaker bonding strength between neighboring lamellae along the stacking direction, the C33 elastic constant of synthetic Na0.5-fluorohectorite is found to be lower than those reported for micas, which falls within the expected trend.