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Molecular engineering of piezoelectricity in collagen-mimicking peptide assemblies
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Date
2021
Abstract
Realization of a self-assembled, nontoxic and eco-friendly piezoelectric device with high-performance, sensitivity and reliability is highly desirable to complement conventional inorganic and polymer based materials. Hierarchically organized natural materials such as collagen have long been posited to exhibit electromechanical properties that could potentially be amplified via molecular engineering to produce technologically relevant piezoelectricity. Here, by using a simple, minimalistic, building block of collagen, we fabricate a peptide-based piezoelectric generator utilising a radically different helical arrangement of Phe-Phe-derived peptide, Pro-Phe-Phe and Hyp-Phe-Phe, based only on proteinogenic amino acids. The simple addition of a hydroxyl group increases the expected piezoelectric response by an order of magnitude (d35 = 27 pm V−1 ). The value is highest predicted to date in short natural peptides. We demonstrate tripeptide-based power generator that produces stable max current >50 nA and potential >1.2 V. Our results provide a promising device demonstration of computationally-guided molecular engineering of piezoelectricity in peptide nanotechnology
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peer-reviewed
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
Citation
Nature Communications;12, 2634
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Funding Information
National Natural Science Foundation of China, Horizon 2020, Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), Irish Centre for High-End Computing (ICHEC), European Research Council (ERC)