Migliaccio Ludovico, Manini Paola, Altamura Davide, Giannini Cinzia, Tassini Paolo, Maglione Maria Grazia, Minarini Carla, Pezzella Alessandro
Department of Chemical Sciences, University of Naples "Federico II", Naples, Italy.
Istituto di Cristallografia (IC), CNR, Bari, Italy.
Front Chem. 2019 Mar 26;7:162. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2019.00162. eCollection 2019.
Melanin denotes a variety of mammalian pigments, including the dark electrically conductive eumelanin and the reddish, sulfur-containing, pheomelanin. Organic (bio)electronics is showing increasing interests in eumelanin exploitation, e.g., for bio-interfaces, but the low conductivity of the material is limiting the development of eumelanin-based devices. Here, for the first time, we report an abrupt increase of the eumelanin electrical conductivity, revealing the highest value presented to date of 318 S/cm. This result, obtained via simple thermal annealing in vacuum of the material, designed on the base of the knowledge of the eumelanin chemical properties, also discloses the actual electronic nature of this material's conduction.
黑色素指的是多种哺乳动物色素，包括深色的导电真黑素以及含硫的红色褐黑素。有机（生物）电子学对利用真黑素表现出越来越浓厚的兴趣，例如用于生物界面，但该材料的低导电性限制了基于真黑素的器件的发展。在此，我们首次报告真黑素的电导率急剧增加，揭示了迄今为止所呈现的最高值为318 S/cm。通过基于对真黑素化学性质的了解而设计的材料在真空中进行简单热退火获得的这一结果，还揭示了该材料导电的实际电子本质。
