Work

Screw dislocation–mediated galaxy-mimicking superspiral assembly with amplified bio-piezoelectricity

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: From the galaxies to the petals, spiral architectures are ubiquitous to confer hierarchical organizations, supporting asymmetric galactic evolutions and biological activities. Herein, inspired from nature, we report the superspiral architectures self-assembled by a minimalist amino acid. These superspirals, with spirality and geometry programmably tuned by enantiomeric excess and organization parameters, are determined to arise from the screw dislocation induced hierarchical crystallization. Notably, the spiral organization can integrate and amplify electrical polarization, yielding 17-fold enhancement in piezoelectric response contrast to random aggregates. This allows engineering of piezoelectric bioelectronics, resulting in high gain direction-selective motion sensing. Our work establishes an alternative paradigm for developing bioinspired hierarchical architectures of oriented and amplified properties, offering a self-assembling route to explore programmably modulated functional architectures for bioelectronic engineering.

Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2611417123

Authors: Jiahao Zhang, Haoran Wu, Shixuan Xu, Haoye Jiang, Kang Ma, Syed A. M. Tofail, Deqing Mei, Junbai Li, Kai Tao

Institutions: Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, State Key Laboratory Fluid Power and Mechatronic Systems, Zhejiang University, University of Limerick, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, Institute of Chemistry

Language: English

Topic: Supramolecular Self-Assembly in Materials

Subfield: Biomaterials

Field: Materials Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

OpenAlex ID: W7223067115

FWCI:

Cites: 44

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Related to: 10