Virtual participation: Zoom details available here
Speaker: Dr Sarah Guerin, University of Limerick
Title: "Piezoelectric Biomolecules for Lead Free, Reliable, Eco Friendly Electronics"
Abstract: 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 medi-cal device, infrastructure, automotive and aerospace industries, but with a huge environmental cost. Amino acids are the most basic biological components, and they are cheap and simple to crystallize , with signifi-cant piezoelectricity in single crystal and polycrystalline forms . How-ever, this response is highly anisotropic, and precise, orientated control over crystallisation is required to maximize the piezoelectric output of a crystalline amino acid device for development into a cohesive ceramic-type element. Our research is taking on the challenge of developing bi-omolecular crystals as organic, low-cost, high-performance sensors, to out-perform and phase-out inorganic device components with dramati-cally reduced environmental impact. In this talk I will discuss our methodologies for the design, growth, and engineering of these novel piezoelectric materials under three pillars:
• An ambitious computational workflow to 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, allowing for easy, efficient creation of macroscopic piezoelectric structures;
• Establishing effective electromechanical testing procedures to charac-terise fully insulated and contacted biomolecular device components.
Even 'weak' organic piezoelectric with modest piezoelectric constants can yield significant voltages in response to strain because the piezoe-lectric voltages produced under an applied force are inversely propor-tional to the material's dielectric constant.
Biography: Dr Sarah Guerin runs the Actuate Lab in the Department of Physics and Bernal Institute in the University of Limerick. She currently works on both in-silico and ex-silico engineering of biomolecular crystals, primarily for application areas in eco-friendly sensing and pharmaceuticals. She has secured over €2M of funding from Science Foundation Ireland and the European Research Council for the development of organic piezoelectric device components. She currently works with a large number of international research groups as a world-leader in computationally predicting the electromechanical properties of novel molecular crystals. She has been awarded the British Association of Crystal Growth Young Scientist of the Year Award and the IEEE Dilip Das Gupta Memorial Award. She graduated in 2015 with a BSc in Applied Physics from the University of Limerick, going on to complete her PhD in piezoelectric modelling with Professor Damien Thompson. Her postdoctoral research was carried out in the modelling theme of SSPC, the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Pharmaceuticals, in which she is now a funded investigator. She is the SFI Early Career Researcher of the Year 2023.