(Invited) Thin Films of Eumelanin Pigment: Charge Carrier Transport, Ion Storage, and Interaction with Metal Electrodes
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The ubiquitous natural pigment eumelanin is widely studied for its photoprotective, thermoregulating, free-radical scavenging, and anti-oxidant functions in the human body. Recently, eumelanin received increased attention for potential applications in organic bioelectronics due to its unique set of physicochemical properties including strong broad-band UV-Vis absorption, metal chelation properties, and potentially mixed electronic-ionic conduction in a hydrated state [1,2]. To further explore the use of eumelanin in organic bioelectronic devices, the properties of eumelanin thin films interfaced with device components such as metal electrodes need to be investigated in presence of water and ionic species. A good understanding of the interaction of eumelanin with different metal electrodes is also essential to study the intrinsic charge transport properties of eumelanin films, which are still largely undiscovered. We characterized eumelanin films grown on substrates patterned with gold, platinum, and palladium hydride electrodes using hydration-dependent transient electrical current and atomic force microscopy measurements. We discovered an electrochemical interaction among metal-chelating catechol groups of hydrated eumelanin, Cl- traces in the eumelanin material and Au electrodes, assumed to be electrochemically stable in previously published works on the electrical properties of eumelanin. This interaction leads to the growth of highly conductive Au-eumelanin dendrites between the electrodes, ultimately leading to sudden resistive changes of the sample. This phenomenon suggests new possibilities for biocompatible memory devices and has to be taken into account when integrating eumelanin-like materials in electronic devices [3]. Electrical characterization of eumelanin films interfaced with ion-blocking Pt and proton-transparent electrodes [4] complemented by cyclic voltammetry and impedance spectroscopy measurements give new insights into the charge transport properties of eumelanin films. Our results indicate the presence of protonic currents in eumelanin thin films, increasing with sample hydration, and cannot exclude the presence of electronic currents. These results support recently published data obtained by spectroscopic measurements on eumelanin pellets [2] and underline the attractiveness of eumelanin films for applications at the interface of electronics and biology. [1] M. D’Ischia et al., Angew. Chem. Int. Edit. 48, 3914 (2009). [2] A. B. Mostert et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 109, 8943 (2012). [3] J. Wünsche et al., Adv. Funct. Mater. 23, 5569 (2013). [4] C. Zhong, Y. Deng, A. F. Roudsari, A. Kapetanovic, M. P. Anantram, M. Rolandi, Nat. Commun. 2, 476 (2011).
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".