Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 February 2011
After some experimental results that indicated that HA is able to growth in an epitaxial way on the surface of OCP, it has been suggested that the central dark line (CDL) observed in the nanometric-sized grains of human tooth enamel corresponds to a one-unit-cell-thick layer of octacalcium phosphate (OCP). Based on this consideration, in this work we propose a model for CDL and we carried out the chemistry and structural analysis of the CDL with high resolution microscopy techniques such as Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy (EELS) and Z-contrast (HAADF) with the aim of find the agreements and/or differences between the human tooth enamel HA and its CDL.