Pyroelectric Properties of Novel Protein Amino Acid-based Single Crystals

A number of novel protein amino acid-based single crystals were grown from aqueous solutions and their dielectric and pyroelectric properties were studied in a temperature range 140–340 K. It was shown that some of the crystals such as L-His· (H3P04)2, L-Tyr· HCl, L-Ala2H3PO3· H2O have pyroelectric figure-of-merit comparable to those of TGS. Anomalous dielectric properties of DL-Ser2· H2S04· H2O single crystals were observed in a temperature range 260-270 K revealing a first-order phase transition to an incommensurate phase.