Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
1548804 | Progress in Natural Science: Materials International | 2009 | 4 Pages |
Abstract
A prismatic layer is present in both freshwater-cultured pearls and seawater-cultured pearls. The phase structure of the prismatic layer of freshwater-cultured pearls is investigated for the first time and novel findings are reported in this paper. X-ray diffraction (XRD), optical microscopy (OM) and micro-infrared (IR) spectroscopy were used to characterize the crystallized layers of high and low-quality freshwater-cultured pearls. Results show that there is no calcite in the prismatic layer of freshwater-cultured pearls, which is different from what was found for seawater-cultured pearls. We found that an aragonite phase was present in the prismatic layer of high-quality freshwater-cultured pearls and that a vaterite or aragonite phase was present in low-quality pearls. Based on this study an internal factor that influences the quality of freshwater-cultured pearls is discussed.
Keywords
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Materials Science
Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
Authors
Hongyan Ma, Anan Su, Beili Zhang, Ru-Kang Li, Longchang Zhou, Baoli Wang,