Thu, 24 Jul 2008 23:20:49 BST CiteULike: dchens Abrecht http://www.citeulike.org/user/dchen/author/Abrecht CiteULike.org en-gb Copyright © 2004-2008 citeulike.org http://www.citeulike.org/user/dchen/article/2749598 <i>Physical Review Letters, Vol. 98, No. 26. (2007)</i><br /><br />We analyze the structure of Haliotis rufescens nacre, or mother-of-pearl, using synchrotron spectromicroscopy and x-ray absorption near-edge structure spectroscopy. We observe imaging contrast between adjacent individual nacre tablets, arising because different tablets have different crystal orientations with respect to the radiation's polarization vector. Comparing previous data and our new data with models for columnar nacre growth, we find the data are most consistent with a model in which nacre tablets are nucleated by randomly distributed sites in the organic matrix layers. Architecture of Columnar Nacre, and Implications for Its Formation Mechanism Rebecca Metzler Mike Abrecht Ronke Olabisi Daniel Ariosa Christopher Johnson Bradley Frazer Susan Coppersmith PUPA Gilbert doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.268102 Physical Review Letters, Vol. 98, No. 26. (2007) 2008-05-03T18:21:34-00:00 2007 Physical Review Letters 98 26 APS 2007 biology crystalization focus material