Production of Polar beta-Glycine Nanofibers with Enhanced Nonlinear Optical and Piezoelectric Properties

abstract

Electrospinning of an aqueous poly(vinyl alcohol) and glycine solution has been used to produce nanofibers with an embedded crystalline glycine exclusively in the form of the beta polymorph. The beta-glycine nanocrystals are highly oriented within the polymer fibers and present good polar properties. Piezoelectric and nonlinear optical responses have been quantitatively examined showing piezoelectric coefficient d(eff) = 12.5 pm/V and an effective nonlinear optical susceptibility two times greater than that of potassium dihydrogen phosphate (KDP). Additionally, although bulk beta-glycine is metastable at room temperature, when confined inside the polymeric nanofibers, it is shown to be remarkably stable.

keywords

GAMMA-GLYCINE; IR-SPECTRA; CRYSTAL; CRYSTALLIZATION; POLYMORPHISM; UREA

subject category

Chemistry; Crystallography; Materials Science

authors

Isakov, D; Gomes, ED; Bdikin, I; Almeida, B; Belsley, M; Costa, M; Rodrigues, V; Heredia, A

Groups

acknowledgements

This work was done in the frame of programs CIENCLA-2007 (ref UMINHO-CF-06) and CIENCIA-2008 and was financially supported by Portugues Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia, grants PTDC/CTM-NAN/114269/2009 and PTDC/CTM/CTM/105597/2008. We would like to acknowledge Dr. Luis Vieira for help with FTIR measurements.

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