9 research outputs found
Diffraction from the beta-sheet crystallites in spider silk
We analyze the wide angle x-ray scattering from oriented spider silk fibers
in terms of a quantitative scattering model, including both structural and
statistical parameters of the -sheet crystallites of spider silk in the
amorphous matrix. The model is based on kinematic scattering theory and allows
for rather general correlations of the positional and orientational degrees of
freedom, including the crystallite's size, composition and dimension of the
unit cell. The model is evaluated numerically and compared to experimental
scattering intensities allowing us to extract the geometric and statistical
parameters. We show explicitly that for the experimentally found mosaicity
(width of the orientational distribution) inter-crystallite effects are
negligible and the data can be analyzed in terms of single crystallite
scattering, as is usually assumed in the literature.Comment: 15 pages, 14 figures, on average 0.93 figures per pag