Epitaxial growth of vertically aligned piezoelectric diphenylalanine peptide microrods with uniform polarization

• The fabrication of highly textured dipeptide seed layer was investigated.
• Vertically aligned dipeptide microrod was achieved through epitaxial growth.
• Piezoelectricity of highly crystallized dipeptide microrod was evaluated.
• In-situ electric field during growth was found to generate microrods with uniform polarization.

Energy harvesting with piezoelectric nanomaterials spurred the development of self-powered nanosystems, and piezoelectric biomaterials are expected to play an important role in the biomedical field. Bio-inspired piezoelectric diphenylalanine (FF) peptide microstructures were fabricated on various substrates through a novel epitaxial growth approach. The low-temperature process produced vertically aligned FF peptide microrods with hexagonally arranged nanochannels and uniform polarization. Direct measurement of the piezoelectricity was achieved for the first time from a solid FF peptide single crystal and yielded an effective piezoelectric coefficient d33d33 at 9.9 pm/V. The dense and aligned FF peptide microrods are advantageous for energy and sensing applications.

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