High-resolution electron microscopy of human enamel crystals

The structure of enamel crystals obtained from four human premolars has been studied by high-resolution electron microscopy (HREM) in the [0001], [2110], [1540], [0110] and [1213] crystallographic directions at various microscope defocus and crystal thickness values. The resolution obtained has not previously been reported for human enamel crystals. In all cases, it was possible to match the experimental images to images calculated using the atomic positions of mineral hydroxyapatite. However, a deviation from hexagonal symmetry characterized by marked (1010) planes of intensity different from the one of the (3030) and (1010)-type planes was observed. In this work, we present an improvement of Scherzer resolution of 0.25-0.20 nm over previous work on biological enamel crystals. This improvement of resolution has permitted the incorporation of crystallographic reflections of higher spatial frequencies into the imaging process of the microscope and has led to a more precise structure determination of the crystals studied.