Mother of Pearl Secret Revealed
Thursday, November 27, 2008 - 14:42
in Physics & Chemistry
(PhysOrg.com) -- In addition to its iridescent beauty, mother of pearl, or nacre, the inner lining of the shells of abalone, mussels and certain other mollusks, is also renowned for an amazing strength and toughness that has been a long-standing mystery. Now, scientists have brought to light a new aspect of nacre`s nanostructural architecture using the polarized x-ray beams and nanoscale imaging capabilities of the Advanced Light Source (ALS), a national synchrotron facility at the U.S. Department of Energy`s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).