Nanoscale electromechanical properties of template-assisted hierarchical self-assembled cellulose nanofibers

Abstract

Hierarchical self-assembled cellulose nanofibers, fabricated using a template-wetting process, are shown to exhibit distinct shear piezoelectricity, paving the way towards engineered nanofibers with tailor-made electromechanical properties.

Quantitative Electromechanical Atomic Force Microscopy

“…61 For PPLN, when the IDS spot was placed directly over the tip position we measured a deff coefficient of ~8.5pm/V (see Supplementary Figure S6). In agreement with measurements on quartz the measured value for LN is well below the expected bulk/macroscopic value (16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23) pm/V), however, it matches precisely with previous measurements using IDS-PFM (8.4 pm/V), 36 and is close to values determined from modal correction of PFM signal (7.5 pm/V) 24 and low frequency KPFM (between 6-7 pm/V). 61 For both samples studied here (PPLN and quartz), IDS-PFM measurements consistently gave piezoelectric coefficients two to three times lower than expected based on reported bulk values.…”

“…ESM was first applied to the study of ionic motion in batteries, 10 fuel cell electrodes 14 and oxides; 15,16 and as with PFM, there is a current demand for applications of ESM for nontraditional applications as well as applications in liquid environments. 17,18 Beyond PFM and ESM, there are related techniques [19][20][21][22] which can capture similar information, all of which fall under our definition of VM-AFM. Most all VM-AFM modes have evolved with the goal of quantifying local electromechanical deformations.…”

Synthesis and characterization of TEMPO-oxidized peptide-cellulose conjugate biosensors for detecting human neutrophil elastase

“…Additionally, some forms of nanocellulose, namely aerogels and nanofibrillated cellulose, can take on a 3-D structure. This property affords the ability to utilize the material as a scaffold for regenerative tissue repair processes (Courtenay et al 2018;Doench et al 2019) and has been utilized for sensor applications (Blackwell 2006;Song et al 2018), including electromechanical (Calahorra et al 2018), plasmonic (Schlesinger et al 2015) and biosensors (Zhang et al 2010). Our previous research has illustrated the use of nanocrystalline cellulose as a POC diagnostic for serine proteases through the attachment of peptides to the transducer surface, known as a peptide-cellulose conjugate, detecting human neutrophil elastase (HNE) over a wide range of concentrations and using a variety of cellulose-based materials (Edwards et al 2018a;Fontenot et al 2016).…”

Self-assembly of collagen bundles and enhanced piezoelectricity induced by chemical crosslinking

“…The low force applied in PF also enables it to be used to image biological samples such as cellulose nanowires, 15 synthetic piezoelectric polymers like PVDF 16,17 and Nylon, 18 as well as polymers for biomedical uses like poly-L-lactic acid. 19 Similarly, the piezoelectric properties of the sample can be obtained using piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM), where an alternating voltage bias is applied on the tip whilst in contact with the sample.…”