abstract
Peptide nanotubes (PNTs) are bioelectrets that exhibit piezoelectricity, pyroelectricity, ferroelectricity, and birefringence. Birefringence is an optical property that can be used to determine the degree of order, orientation, size, and shape of PNTs. In this work, a custom-built optical apparatus is used to quantitatively measure birefringence in three dimensions of PNTs under varying electric fields and temperature. This work also includes techniques for aligning and orienting PNTs and discusses the role of birefringence measurements in the study of PNTs.
keywords
CRYSTALS; GENERATION; MICROSCOPY
subject category
Engineering; Physics
authors
O'Mahony, C; Mani, A; Kopyl, S; Vasileva, D; Vasilev, S; Shur, VY; Kholkin, A; Silien, C; Tofail, SAM
our authors
Andrei Kholkin
Retired Researcher
Svitlana Kopyl
ResearcherProjects
Biocompatible Piezoelectric Thin Films: Towards a Wearable Sensor Devices (BioPiezoSensor)
Piezoelectricity in 2D-materials: materials, modeling, and applications (Piezo2D)
acknowledgements
This work was supported in part by the Erasmus International Credit Mobility between the University of Limerick, Ireland, Ural Federal University, Russian Federation, and the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Medical Devices (CURAM) Phase 1 and Phase 2. The work of Svitlana Kopyl and Andrei Kholkin was supported by Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (FCT) project BioPiezoSensor under Grant 2022.03781.PTDC and in part by European Union (EU) Marie Sklodowska Curie Actions (MSCA) Piezo2D (HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-SE) under Grant 101121229.