Piezoelectric Biomolecules for lead-free, Reliable, Eco-Friendly Electronics

Introduction

Billions of piezoelectric sensors are produced every year, improving the efficiency of many current and emerging technologies. By interconverting electrical and mechanical energy, they enable medical device, infrastructure, automotive, and aerospace industries, but with a huge environmental cost.

Environmental Concerns

The majority of piezoelectric sensors contain Lead Zirconium Titanate (PZT), the fabrication of which requires toxic lead oxide. Prominent lead-free alternatives are heavily processed and rely on expensive, non-renewable materials such as Niobium.

Emerging Solutions

Biological materials such as amino acids and peptides have emerged as exciting new piezoelectrics. Biomolecular-crystal assemblies can be grown at room temperature with no by-products and do not require an external electric field to induce piezoelectricity, unlike PZT and other piezoceramics.

Current Challenges

Currently, no research is focused on developing these crystals as reliable, solid-state sensors to integrate into conventional electronic devices due to their:

1. High water solubility
2. Uncontrolled growth
3. Variable piezoelectric response
4. Difficulty in making electrical contact

Project Goals

Pb-FREE will take on the ground-breaking challenge of developing biomolecular crystals as organic, low-cost, high-performance sensors to outperform and phase out inorganic device components with dramatically reduced environmental impact.

Methodology

The project will rapidly accelerate the design, growth, and engineering of these novel piezoelectric materials under three pillars:

• An ambitious computational workflow will enable the design of super-piezoelectric crystalline assemblies by combining high-throughput quantum mechanical calculations with machine learning algorithms.
• A new method of growing polycrystalline biomolecules will be developed, allowing for easy, efficient creation of macroscopic piezoelectric structures.
• A state-of-the-art electromechanical testing suite will be established to characterize fully insulated and contacted biomolecular device components.