The hidden structure of human enamel

Elia Beniash, Cayla A. Stifler, Chang-Yu Sun, Gang Seob Jung, Zhao Qin, Markus J. Buehler () and Pupa U. P. A. Gilbert ()
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Elia Beniash: UPitt
Cayla A. Stifler: UW-Madison
Chang-Yu Sun: UW-Madison
Gang Seob Jung: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Zhao Qin: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Markus J. Buehler: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Pupa U. P. A. Gilbert: UW-Madison

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: Abstract Enamel is the hardest and most resilient tissue in the human body. Enamel includes morphologically aligned, parallel, ∼50 nm wide, microns-long nanocrystals, bundled either into 5-μm-wide rods or their space-filling interrod. The orientation of enamel crystals, however, is poorly understood. Here we show that the crystalline c-axes are homogenously oriented in interrod crystals across most of the enamel layer thickness. Within each rod crystals are not co-oriented with one another or with the long axis of the rod, as previously assumed: the c-axes of adjacent nanocrystals are most frequently mis-oriented by 1°–30°, and this orientation within each rod gradually changes, with an overall angle spread that is never zero, but varies between 30°–90° within one rod. Molecular dynamics simulations demonstrate that the observed mis-orientations of adjacent crystals induce crack deflection. This toughening mechanism contributes to the unique resilience of enamel, which lasts a lifetime under extreme physical and chemical challenges.

Date: 2019
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-12185-7

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