Here, we report the growth of bioelectret crystal films of L-leucine on conductive substrates and detail the first quantitative measurements of the direct piezoelectric effect in this proteinogenic amino acid. Through extensive electromechanical characterisation, we demonstrate that L-leucine is a promising candidate material for use in non-toxic, biocompatible and biodegradable energy harvesting and sensing devices. The data presented here is among, if not the, largest set of quasi-static, longitudinal piezoelectric measurements on crystalline films of a proteinogenic amino acid to date. We substantiate these measurements using a combination of density functional theory calculations and optical microscopy. Our data provides a further example of the enormous unexploited potential of amino acids and similar biological materials in flexible energy harvesting applications. Their combination of sizeable piezoelectric strain constants and extremely low elastic and dielectric constants makes them ideal as biocompatible replacements for toxic, expensive inorganic piezoelectric materials.

中文翻译：

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蛋白质氨基酸 L-亮氨酸的压电性：一种新型压电活性生物驻极体

在这里，我们报告了 L-亮氨酸的生物驻极体晶体膜在导电基底上的生长，并详细介绍了这种蛋白质氨基酸中直接压电效应的首次定量测量。通过广泛的机电表征，我们证明 L-亮氨酸是一种很有前途的候选材料，可用于无毒、生物相容性和可生物降解的能量收集和传感设备。此处提供的数据是迄今为止最大的一组准静态纵向压电测量数据，其中包括迄今为止对蛋白质氨基酸的结晶膜进行的测量。我们结合使用密度泛函理论计算和光学显微镜来证实这些测量结果。我们的数据提供了另一个例子，说明氨基酸和类似生物材料在灵活能量收集应用中的巨大未开发潜力。它们将相当大的压电应变常数与极低的弹性和介电常数相结合，使其成为有毒、昂贵的无机压电材料的生物相容性替代品的理想选择。