What is it about?
Starch granules have a conspicuous Maltese Cross when viewed using a polarizing microscope (there are many pictures in food science journals). But with a fully equipped polarizing microscope many other interesting features can be observed - like interference colors determined by the molecular structure of starch granules. Measuring things is a good way to understand them - hence colorimetry of the interference colors.
Featured Image
Why is it important?
Although photomicrographs of the Maltese Crosses on starch granules appear in many food science journals, I doubt whether many researchers really understand what they are looking at.
Perspectives
The final stage of the research was to find whether starch granule birefringence was caused by amylose or amylopectin. This required using UV light and is reported in the Quekett Journal of Microscopy (not your average scientific journal - but one of the oldest and most prestigious for anyone who loves microscopy).
Howard Swatland
University of Guelph
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Interference colorimetry of starch granules, Color Research & Application, May 2015, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1002/col.21972.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
