Structure of rice starch granules in nanometre scale as revealed by atomic force microscopy

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) was performed for the analysis of the fine structure of rice starch granules in the nanometre scale which were prepared by a physical destruction method. The present study directly demonstrated that fine particles of approximately 30 nm in diameter were present inside each granule and occasionally formed straight chain arrangements. We considered that these fine particles correspond to the individual single cluster in the cluster model which has been proposed in previous studies on the starch granule structure.