Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

High-Resolution Imaging Of Proteins In Human Teeth By Scanning Probe Microscopy, Alexei Gruverman, D. Wu, B. J. Rodriguez, Sergei V. Kalinin, S. Habelitz

Alexei Gruverman Publications

High-resolution studies of dental tissues are of considerable interest for biomedical engineering and clinical applications. In this paper, we demonstrate the application of piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM) to nanoscale imaging of internal structure of human teeth by monitoring the local mechanical response to an electrical bias applied via a conductive tip. It is shown that PFM is capable of detecting dissimilar components of dental tissues, namely, proteins and calcified matrix, which have resembling morphology but different piezoelectric properties. It is demonstrated that collagen fibrils revealed in chemically treated intertubular dentin exhibit high piezoelectric activity and can be visualized in PFM …