Publication Date:
2015-11-20
Description:
The mechanical properties of many materials are based on the macroscopic arrangement and orientation of their nanostructure. This nanostructure can be ordered over a range of length scales. In biology, the principle of hierarchical ordering is often used to maximize functionality, such as strength and robustness of the material, while minimizing weight and energy cost. Methods for nanoscale imaging provide direct visual access to the ultrastructure (nanoscale structure that is too small to be imaged using light microscopy), but the field of view is limited and does not easily allow a full correlative study of changes in the ultrastructure over a macroscopic sample. Other methods of probing ultrastructure ordering, such as small-angle scattering of X-rays or neutrons, can be applied to macroscopic samples; however, these scattering methods remain constrained to two-dimensional specimens or to isotropically oriented ultrastructures. These constraints limit the use of these methods for studying nanostructures with more complex orientation patterns, which are abundant in nature and materials science. Here, we introduce an imaging method that combines small-angle scattering with tensor tomography to probe nanoscale structures in three-dimensional macroscopic samples in a non-destructive way. We demonstrate the method by measuring the main orientation and the degree of orientation of nanoscale mineralized collagen fibrils in a human trabecula bone sample with a spatial resolution of 25 micrometres. Symmetries within the sample, such as the cylindrical symmetry commonly observed for mineralized collagen fibrils in bone, allow for tractable sampling requirements and numerical efficiency. Small-angle scattering tensor tomography is applicable to both biological and materials science specimens, and may be useful for understanding and characterizing smart or bio-inspired materials. Moreover, because the method is non-destructive, it is appropriate for in situ measurements and allows, for example, the role of ultrastructure in the mechanical response of a biological tissue or manufactured material to be studied.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Liebi, Marianne -- Georgiadis, Marios -- Menzel, Andreas -- Schneider, Philipp -- Kohlbrecher, Joachim -- Bunk, Oliver -- Guizar-Sicairos, Manuel -- England -- Nature. 2015 Nov 19;527(7578):349-52. doi: 10.1038/nature16056.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Paul Scherrer Institut, 5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland. ; Institute for Biomechanics, ETH Zurich, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland. ; Bioengineering Science Research Group, Faculty of Engineering and the Environment, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26581291" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Aged
;
Collagen/ultrastructure
;
Humans
;
Imaging, Three-Dimensional/methods
;
Male
;
Nanostructures/*ultrastructure
;
*Scattering, Small Angle
;
Spine/ultrastructure
;
Tomography/*methods
;
X-Ray Diffraction
Print ISSN:
0028-0836
Electronic ISSN:
1476-4687
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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