Journal
ADVANCED FUNCTIONAL MATERIALS
Volume 22, Issue 14, Pages 2996-3003Publisher
WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH
DOI: 10.1002/adfm.201103011
Keywords
ferroelectrics; polarization; domains; memory; switching
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Funding
- Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS)
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory by the Scientific User Facilities Division, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, U.S. Department of Energy
- CNMS
- Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT)
- NYSTAR [C080117]
- Marie-Curie ITN project Nanomotion [FP7-PEOPLE-2011-ITN-290158]
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Ferroelectrics are multifunctional materials that reversibly change their polarization under an electric field. Recently, the search for new ferroelectrics has focused on organic and bio-organic materials, where polarization switching is used to record/retrieve information in the form of ferroelectric domains. This progress has opened a new avenue for data storage, molecular recognition, and new self-assembly routes. Crystalline glycine is the simplest amino acid and is widely used by living organisms to build proteins. Here, it is reported for the first time that ?-glycine, which has been known to be piezoelectric since 1954, is also a ferroelectric, as evidenced by local electromechanical measurements and by the existence of as-grown and switchable ferroelectric domains in microcrystals grown from the solution. The experimental results are rationalized by molecular simulations that establish that the polarization vector in ?-glycine can be switched on the nanoscale level, opening a pathway to novel classes of bioelectronic logic and memory devices.
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