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Nanostructured Electrospun Fibers with Self-assembled Cyclo-L-Tryptophan-L-Tyrosine Dipeptide as Piezoelectric Materials and Optical Second Harmonic Generators
Santos, D.; Baptista, R.M.F.; Handa, A.; Almeida, B.; Rodrigues, P.V.; Castro, C.; Machado, A.; Rodrigues, M.J.L.F.; Belsley, M.; de Matos Gomes, E. Nanostructured Electrospun Fibers with Self-Assembled Cyclo-L-Tryptophan-L-Tyrosine Dipeptide as Piezoelectric Materials and Optical Second Harmonic Generators. Materials2023, 16, 4993.
Santos, D.; Baptista, R.M.F.; Handa, A.; Almeida, B.; Rodrigues, P.V.; Castro, C.; Machado, A.; Rodrigues, M.J.L.F.; Belsley, M.; de Matos Gomes, E. Nanostructured Electrospun Fibers with Self-Assembled Cyclo-L-Tryptophan-L-Tyrosine Dipeptide as Piezoelectric Materials and Optical Second Harmonic Generators. Materials 2023, 16, 4993.
Santos, D.; Baptista, R.M.F.; Handa, A.; Almeida, B.; Rodrigues, P.V.; Castro, C.; Machado, A.; Rodrigues, M.J.L.F.; Belsley, M.; de Matos Gomes, E. Nanostructured Electrospun Fibers with Self-Assembled Cyclo-L-Tryptophan-L-Tyrosine Dipeptide as Piezoelectric Materials and Optical Second Harmonic Generators. Materials2023, 16, 4993.
Santos, D.; Baptista, R.M.F.; Handa, A.; Almeida, B.; Rodrigues, P.V.; Castro, C.; Machado, A.; Rodrigues, M.J.L.F.; Belsley, M.; de Matos Gomes, E. Nanostructured Electrospun Fibers with Self-Assembled Cyclo-L-Tryptophan-L-Tyrosine Dipeptide as Piezoelectric Materials and Optical Second Harmonic Generators. Materials 2023, 16, 4993.
Abstract
The potential use of nanostructured dipeptide self-assemblies in materials science for energy harvesting devices is a highly sought-after area of research. Specifically, aromatic cyclo-dipeptides containing tryptophan have garnered attention due to their wide-bandgap semiconductor properties, high mechanical rigidity, photoluminescence, and nonlinear optical behavior. In this study, we present the development of a hybrid system comprising biopolymer electrospun fibers incorporated with the chiral cyclo-dipeptide L-Tryptophan-L-Tyrosine. The resulting nanofibers are wide-bandgap semiconductors (bandgap energy 4.0 eV) and consist of self-assembled nanotubes embedded within a polymer matrix, exhibiting intense blue photoluminescence. Moreover, the cyclo-dipeptide L-Tryptophan-L-Tyrosine incorporated into polycaprolactone nanofibers displays a strong effective second harmonic generation signal of 0.36 pm/V and also shows notable piezoelectric properties with a high effective coefficient of 22 pCN−1. These hybrid systems hold great promise for applications in the field of nanoenergy harvesting and nanophotonics.
Keywords
cyclo-dipeptide; electrospinning; piezoelectricity; nanofibers; optical second harmonic generation; self-assembly
Subject
Chemistry and Materials Science, Materials Science and Technology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.