abstract
Ferroelectricity and piezoelectricity are two of the common ferroelectric material properties, which have widespread observations in many biological systems, and these are referred to as biopiezoelectricity and bioferroelectricity. This paper presents a short overview of the main issues of piezoelectricity and ferroelectricity, their manifestation in organic, biological, and molecular systems. As a showcase of novel biopiezomaterials, the investigation of diphenylalanine (FF) peptide nanotubes (PNTs) is described by computational molecular modeling, as well by experimental AFM/PFM measurements. FF PNTs present a unique class of self-assembled functional biomaterials, owing to their wide range of useful properties, including nanostructural piezoelectric and ferroelectric properties.
keywords
PIEZOELECTRIC PROPERTIES; ION CHANNELS; BIOLOGICAL-SYSTEMS; NERVE-FIBERS; MEMBRANE; BONE; VERTEBRATES; EXCITATION; CRYSTALS; POLYMERS
subject category
Materials Science; Physics
authors
Bystrov, VS; Paramonova, E; Bdikin, I; Kopyl, S; Heredia, A; Pullar, RC; Kholkin, AL
our authors
Andrei Kholkin
Retired Researcher
Rob Pullar
Collaborator
Svitlana Kopyl
Researcher
Vladimir Bystrov
Post-doc FellowshipGroups
G2 - Photonic, Electronic and Magnetic Materials
G4 - Renewable Materials and Circular Economy
Projects
Polarization-driven self-assembly of organic and biomaterials (PTDC/CTM/73030/2006)
RMNE-UA-National Network of Electron Microscopy (REDE/1509/RME/2005 )
acknowledgements
VB is thankful to FCT (Portugal) for the partial financial support through his grant SFRH/BPD/22230/2005. IB and RCP would like to thank the Program Ciencia 2008 of the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (FCT). We also acknowledge FCT projects PTDC/CTM/73030/2006, REDE/1509/RME/2005 and Podi-Trodi EU-Brazil project for partial support.