中文摘要：

Nacre, or mother-of-pearl, is a kind of composites of aragoniteplatelets sandwiched between organic materials. Its excellent mechanical propertiesare thought to stem from the microarchitecture that is traditionally described as a'brick and mortar' arrangement. In this paper, a new microstructure, referred toas mineral bridge in the biomineralization, is directly observed in the organic matrixlayers (mortar) of nacre. This is an indication that the organic matrix layer of nacreshould be treated as a three-dimensional interface and the microarchitecture of nacreought to be considered as a 'brick-bridge-mortar' structure rather than the tradi-tional one. Experiments and analyses show that the mineral bridges not only improvethe mechanical properties of the organic matrix layers but also play an important rolein the pattern of the crack extension in nacre.

英文摘要：

Nacre, or mother-of-pearl, is a kind of composites of aragonite platelets sandwiched between organic materials. Its excellent mechanical properties are thought to stem from the micro architecture that is traditionally described as a 'brick and mortar' arrangement. In this paper, a new microstructure, referred to as mineral bridge in the biomineralization, is directly observed in the organic matrix layers (mortar) of nacre. This is an indication that the organic matrix layer of nacre should be treated as a three-dimensional interface and the micro architecture of nacre ought to be considered as a 'brick-bridge-mortar' structure rather than the traditional one. Experiments and analyses show that the mineral bridges not only improve the mechanical properties of the organic matrix layers but also play an important role in the pattern of the crack extension in nacre.