Electromechanical microscope nudges the nanoscale

Scientists have known for almost half a century that biological materials generate a voltage when they are exposed to a mechanical force. Now a team at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and North Carolina State University has exploited this piezoelectric effect to produce the most detailed images of the internal structure of human teeth (S V Kalinin et al. 2005 arXiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0504232). The technique, which is known as piezoresponse force microscopy, could be used to image a wide range of biomaterials on scales of less than 10 nanometres.