BioFerroelectricity: Diphenylalanine Peptide Nanotubes Computational Modeling and Ferroelectric Properties at the Nanoscale

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:

• Ferroelectrics
• piezoelectrics
• molecular modeling
• organic and biological systems

Acknowledgments

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 Ciência 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.