Oriented assembly of bacteriorhodopsin on ZnO nanostructured electrode for enhanced photocurrent generation

Abstract

Bacteriorhodopsin (bR) is a photoactive protein that has great potential to be used in bioelectronics applications. For the first time, a monolayer of bR created by the Langmuir-Blodgett method is immobilized on a ZnO nanoporous film. Scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy analyses are used to study the morphological properties of the electrodes. In addition, an efficient biosolar cell is designed and fabricated, and the performance of produced nano-biohybrid electrode is investigated by the measurement of power conversion efficiency of biosolar cell. Under AM1.5 irradiation, a short-circuit current of 0.39 mA cm-2, open-circuit voltages of 0.5 V, fill factor of 0.52, and an overall energy conversion efficiency of 0.1% are achieved.