Inverse
photoconductance is an uncommon phenomenon observed in
selective low-dimensional materials, in which the electrical conductivity
of the materials decreases under light illumination. The unique material
property holds great promise for biomedical applications in photodetectors,
photoelectric logic gates, and low-power nonvolatile memory, which
remains a daunting challenge. Especially, tunable photoconductivity
for biocompatible materials is highly desired for interfacing with
biological systems but is less explored in organic materials. Here,
we report nanofibers self-assembled with cyclo-tyrosine-tyrosine (cyclo-YY)
having voltage-regulated inverse photoconductance and photoconductance.
The peptide nanofibers can be switched back and forth by a bias voltage
for imitating biological sensing in artificial vision and memory devices.
A peptide optoelectronic resistive random access memory (PORRAM) device
has also been fabricated using the nanofibers that can be electrically
switched between long-term and short-term memory. The underlying mechanism
of the reversible photoconductance is discussed in this paper. Due
to the inherent biocompatibility of peptide materials, the reversible
photoconductive nanofibers may have broad applications in sensing
and storage for biotic and abiotic interfaces.