abstract
Self-assembled peptide nanostructures are being intensively investigated due to their potential applications such as biosensors, piezotransducers, and microactuators. It was predicted that their formation and hence piezoelectric property strongly depend on the water content and acidity of the stock solution. In this paper, simple diphenylalanine (FF) tubular structures were fabricated from the solutions with added hydrochloric acid in order to understand the influence of chloride ions on the self-assembly process and resulting piezoelectricity. Low-frequency Raman scattering, atomic, and piezoresponse force microscopies were used to characterize both the morphology and piezoelectric properties of the grown samples. The mechanism of chloride anions' effect on the formation of self-assembled peptide nanostructures is discussed based on the acquired Raman data and quantum-chemical modeling. It is shown that the addition of chloride anions causes a significant reduction of the dipole moments of FF tubes accompanied with the concomitant decrease of tube dimensions and apparent shear piezoelectric coefficients.
keywords
PIEZOELECTRIC PROPERTIES; WATER; NANOTUBES/MICROTUBES; MICROTUBES
subject category
Acoustics; Engineering
authors
Dayarian, S; Kopyl, S; Bystrov, V; Correia, MR; Ivanov, MS; Pelegova, E; Kholkin, A
our authors
Andrei Kholkin
Principal Researcher
Maxim Ivanov
Junior Researcher
Shima Dayarian
Research Fellowship
Svitlana Kopyl
Researcheracknowledgements
The work of S. Kopyl and A. Kholkin was supported in part by the Turkish-Portuguese Project under Grant TUBITAK/0006/2014 and in part by the CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials financed by national funds through the FCT/MEC and cofinanced by FEDER through the PT2020 Partnership Agreement under Grant FCT UID/CTM/50011/2013. The work of M. S. Ivanov was supported by FCT through the Project MATIS-Materiais e Tecnologias Industriais Sustentaveis under Grant CENTRO-01-0145-FEDER-000014. ( Corresponding authors: Svitlana Kopyl; Andrei Kholkin.)