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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