Novel approaches to energy harvesting and biosensing devices  exploit optoelectronic processes found in proteins.  However, in order to design such systems the proteins need to be attached to electrodes and the optoelectronic properties in non-liquid (ambient) environments must be understood at a fundamental level.   Here we report the simultaneous detection of electron transport and the effect of optical absorption on dielectric polarizability in oriented peptide single molecular layers.  This characterization requires a peptide design strategy to control protein/electrode interface interactions and a new method to probe electronic, dielectric, and optical properties at the single molecular layer level.  The combination enables a quantitative comparison of the change in polarization volume between the ground state and excited state in a single molecular layer in a manner that allows spatial mapping relevant to ultimate device design.

Probing polarization at protein-electrode interfaces

244th National Meeting (2012)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.