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Anisotropic lattice distortions in biogenic aragonite

Nature Materials volume 3, pages 900–902 (2004)Cite this article

Abstract

Composite biogenic materials produced by organisms have a complicated design on a nanometre scale1,2,3. An outstanding example of organic–inorganic composites is provided by mollusc seashells, whose superior mechanical properties are due to their multi-level crystalline hierarchy4,5 and the presence of a small amount (0.1–5 wt%)6 of organic molecules2,7. The presence of organic molecules, among other characteristics, can influence the coherence length for X-ray scattering in biogenic crystals8,9,10. Here we show the results of synchrotron high-resolution X-ray powder diffraction measurements in biogenic and non-biogenic (geological) aragonite crystals. On applying the Rietveld refinement procedure to the high-resolution diffraction spectra, we were able to extract the aragonite lattice parameters with an accuracy of 10 p.p.m. As a result, we found anisotropic lattice distortions in biogenic aragonite relative to the geological sample, maximum distortion being 0.1% along the c axis of the orthorhombic unit cell. The organic molecules could be a source of these structural distortions in biogenic crystals. This finding may be important to the general understanding of the biomineralization process and the development of bio-inspired 'smart' materials.

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Figure 1: High-resolution X-ray diffraction spectrum of powdered geological aragonite (control sample).
Figure 2: Selected diffraction peaks taken from powdered biogenic and geological aragonite.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Israel Science Foundation founded by the Israel Academy of Science and Humanities (grant no. 15/03-12.6). We thank S. Weiner (Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot) for discussions of different aspects of biomineralization.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Engineering, Technion—Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, 32000, Israel

    Boaz Pokroy, Alex Berner & Emil Zolotoyabko

  2. DND-CAT Synchrotron Research Center, Northwestern University, APS/ANL Sector 5,Building 432A, 9700 South Cass Avenue, Argonne, 60439-4857, Illinois, USA

    John P. Quintana

  3. Physics Department, Nuclear Research Centre—Negev, P.O. Box 9001, Beer-Sheva, 84190, Israel

    El'ad N. Caspi

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  1. Boaz Pokroy
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Correspondence to Boaz Pokroy.

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Pokroy, B., Quintana, J., Caspi, E. et al. Anisotropic lattice distortions in biogenic aragonite. Nature Mater 3, 900–902 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1263

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