Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences (BNLMS), CAS Key Lab of Colloid, Interface and Chemical Thermodynamics, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100190, Beijing, China.
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100049, Beijing, China.
Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2023 Jan 2;62(1):e202214184. doi: 10.1002/anie.202214184. Epub 2022 Dec 1.
Control of symmetry breaking of materials provides large opportunities to regulate their properties and functions. Herein, we report breaking the symmetry of layered dipeptide crystals by utilizing CO to induce the adjacent monomolecular layers to stack from the opposite to the same direction. The role of CO is to cover the interlayer interaction sites and force the dipeptides to adsorb at asymmetric positions. Further, the dipeptide crystals exhibit far superior piezoelectricity after symmetry breaking and the piezoelectric voltage generated from the dipeptide-based generators becomes more than 500 % higher than before. This work reveals a potential route to engineer structures and properties of layered materials and provides a deep insight into the control of non-covalent interactions.
控制材料的对称破缺为调控其性能和功能提供了重要机会。在此，我们报告了利用 CO 打破二肽晶体的层状对称，诱导相邻的单分子层从相反方向堆叠到相同方向。CO 的作用是覆盖层间相互作用位点，并迫使二肽在不对称位置吸附。进一步，对称破缺后的二肽晶体表现出优异的压电性能，基于二肽的发电机产生的压电电压比之前高出 500%以上。这项工作揭示了一种工程化层状材料结构和性能的潜在途径，并深入了解了非共价相互作用的控制。
