Investigations of voids in the aragonite platelets of nacre.

Abstract

We studied the structure of the aragonite platelets of Haliotis laevigata nacre, using conventional transmission electron microscopy, Z-contrast, electron tomography, energy-dispersive X-ray analysis and electron energy-loss spectroscopy. We observed faceted voids several nanometers wide within the aragonite platelets. The electron tomography investigations showed that the voids are distributed more or less randomly in the studied specimen and allowed an estimation of the order of magnitude of the width and the volumetric content of the voids. Further investigations of these voids revealed that they contain an increased amount of carbon, which suggests the existence of organic material within the voids.