A general chemical approach that allows for the facile synthesis of sheelite-type metal molybdate (XMoO4, X = Ca, Sr, Ba) films composed of interconnected multilayered sheets has been developed. The result derived from the initial growth stage implies that the film formation on an appropriate substrate involves several elaborate assembly processes at different length scales: (i) assembly of numerous tiny flakes into integrated layers via "oriented attachment";(ii) organizing individual layers into crosslinked multilayered sheets;(iii) self assembly of these sheets to form hierarchical films. T...
