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Structural Details as Clues to Understanding Nacre Formation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2020

N. Yao ,
D. J. Markiewicz  and
I. A. Aksay
N. Yao
Affiliation:
Princeton Materials Institute, Princeton, NJ08540
D. J. Markiewicz
Affiliation:
Princeton Materials Institute, Princeton, NJ08540 Department of Chemistry, NJ08540
I. A. Aksay
Affiliation:
Princeton Materials Institute, Princeton, NJ08540 Department of Chemical Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ08540
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Mollusk nacre, the opalescent lining of shells such as abalone, has a fracture toughness about 3000 times greater than that of aragonite (CaCO3), the mineral of which it is almost entirely composed. Since it owes its fracture strength and toughness to its composite organic/inorganic microstructure, details of nacre formation provide clues for materials scientists hoping to mimic nacre's microstructure in fracture-resistant synthetic materials. TEM and SEM provide detailed structural information, which contributes to the understanding of nacre.

An abalone shell was fractured to expose the stacked-plate morphology for imaging in a Philips XL30 FEG-SEM. Also, an ion-milled, cross sectional sample was prepared for imaging in a Philips CM200 FEG-TEM. While SEM shows tablets of aragonite with a highly uniform thickness of 0.5 μm, stacked in interdigitated columns (Fig. 1), cross-sectional TEM reveals organic layers, ∼10 nm thick, which separate the aragonite lamella (Fig. 2), consistent with previous studies.

Type
Biological Structure (Cells, Tissues, Organ Systems)
Information
Microscopy and Microanalysis , Volume 6 , Issue S2: Proceedings: Microscopy & Microanalysis 2000, Microscopy Society of America 58th Annual Meeting, Microbeam Analysis Society 34th Annual Meeting, Microscopical Society of Canada/Societe de Microscopie de Canada 27th Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania August 13-17, 2000 , August 2000 , pp. 896 - 897
Copyright
Copyright © Microscopy Society of America

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References

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5. This work was supported by the MRSEC program of the National Science Foundation under Award Number DMR-9400362.Google Scholar