Recently, biocompatible energy harvesting devices have received a great deal of attention for biomedical applications. Among various biomaterials, viruses are expected to be very promising biomaterials for the fabrication of functional devices due to their unique characteristics. While other natural biomaterials have limitations in mass-production, low piezoelectric properties, and surface modification, M13 bacteriophages (phages), which is one type of virus, are likely to overcome these issues with their mass-amplification, self-assembled structure, and genetic modification. Based on these advantages, many researchers have started to develop virus-based energy harvesting devices exhibiting superior properties to previous biomaterial-based devices. To enhance the power of these devices, researchers have tried to modify the surface properties of M13 phages, form biomimetic hierarchical structures, control the dipole alignments, and more. These methods for fabricating virus-based energy harvesting devices can form a powerful strategy to develop high-performance biocompatible energy devices for a wide range of practical applications in the future. In this review, we discuss all these issues in detail.
Keywords: M13 bacteriophage; energy generator; genetic engineering; piezoelectric; self-assembly; virus.