1. Bioinspired Stable and Photoluminescent Assemblies for Power Generation
- Author
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Rusen Yang, Junbai Li, Drahomir Chovan, Syed A. M. Tofail, Wen Hu, Noam Brown, Yi Cao, Kai Tao, Ehud Gazit, Oguzhan Maraba, Damien Thompson, Bin Xue, and Linda J. W. Shimon
- Subjects
Photoluminescence ,Materials science ,Fabrication ,Piezoelectric coefficient ,Biocompatibility ,Mechanical Engineering ,Supramolecular chemistry ,Nanotechnology ,02 engineering and technology ,010402 general chemistry ,021001 nanoscience & nanotechnology ,7. Clean energy ,01 natural sciences ,Piezoelectricity ,Article ,0104 chemical sciences ,Mechanics of Materials ,Surface modification ,General Materials Science ,0210 nano-technology ,Elastic modulus - Abstract
Peptide assemblies are ideal components for eco-friendly optoelectronic energy harvesting devices due to their intrinsic biocompatibility, ease of fabrication, and flexible functionalization. However, to date, their practical applications have been limited due to the difficulty in obtaining stable, high-performance devices. Here, it is shown that the tryptophan-based simplest peptide cycloglycine-tryptophan (cyclo-GW) forms mechanically robust (elastic modulus up to 24.0 GPa) and thermally stable up to 370 °C monoclinic crystals, due to a supramolecular packing combining dense parallel β-sheet hydrogen bonding and herringbone edge-to-face aromatic interactions. The directional and extensive driving forces further confer unique optical properties, including aggregation-induced blue emission and unusual stable photo-luminescence. Moreover, the crystals produce a high and sustained opencircuit voltage (1.2 V) due to a high piezoelectric coefficient of 14.1 pC N(−1). These findings demonstrate the feasibility of utilizing self-assembling peptides for fabrication of biointegrated microdevices that combine high structural stability, tailored optoelectronics, and significant energy harvesting properties.
- Published
- 2019
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