Self-assembled peptide nanotubes as electronic materials: An evaluation from first-principles calculations

Akdim, Brahim; Pachter, Ruth; Naik, Rajesh R.

doi:10.1063/1.4921012

Cited by 48 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 38 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In addition, these supramolecular structures can be tailored to give desired functionality . For example, self‐assembled phenylalanine‐tryptophan (FW) nanostructures present a much smaller bandgap than FF nanotubes . The resulting improvements in conductivity and photoluminescence, indicate that supramolecular architectures self‐assembled by W‐based peptides may provide better device properties than the F‐based counterparts.…”

Section: Calculated Piezoelectric Coefficients Extracted From Figure Amentioning

confidence: 99%

Bioinspired Stable and Photoluminescent Assemblies for Power Generation

et al. 2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Peptide assemblies are ideal components for eco-friendly optoelectronic energy harvesting devices due to their intrinsic biocompatibility, ease of fabrication, and flexible functionalization. However, to date, their practical applications have been limited due to the difficulty in obtaining stable, high-performance devices. Here, it is shown that the tryptophan-based simplest peptide cycloglycine-tryptophan (cyclo-GW) forms mechanically robust (elastic modulus up to 24.0 GPa) and thermally stable up to 370 °C monoclinic crystals, due to a supramolecular packing combining dense parallel β-sheet hydrogen bonding and herringbone edge-to-face aromatic interactions. The directional and extensive driving forces further confer unique optical properties, including aggregation-induced blue emission and unusual stable photo-luminescence. Moreover, the crystals produce a high and sustained opencircuit voltage (1.2 V) due to a high piezoelectric coefficient of 14.1 pC N−1. These findings demonstrate the feasibility of utilizing self-assembling peptides for fabrication of biointegrated microdevices that combine high structural stability, tailored optoelectronics, and significant energy harvesting properties.

show abstract

Section: Calculated Piezoelectric Coefficients Extracted From Figure Amentioning

confidence: 99%

Bioinspired Stable and Photoluminescent Assemblies for Power Generation

et al. 2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Diphenylalanine (FF) is one of the most studied molecular crystal building blocks, mainly due to the exceptional properties of the assembled structures, including piezoelectricity, pyroelectricity, semiconductivity, and photoluminescence . Some of the unique mechanical characteristics of FF assemblies were attributed to noncentrosymmetric crystalline organization at the microscopic level .…”

Section: Laminated Materialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bioinspired Flexible and Tough Layered Peptide Crystals

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

One major challenge of functional material fabrication is combining flexibility, strength, and toughness. In several biological and artificial systems, these desired mechanical properties are achieved by hierarchical architectures and various forms of anisotropy, as found in bones and nacre. Here, it is reported that crystals of N-capped diphenylalanine, one of the most studied self-assembling systems in nanotechnology, exhibit well-ordered packing and diffraction of sub-Å resolution, yet display an exceptionally flexible nature. To explore this flexibility, the mechanical properties of individual crystals are evaluated, assisted by density functional theory calculations. High-resolution scanning electron microscopy reveals that the crystals are composed of layered self-assembled structures. The observed combination of strength, toughness, and flexibility can therefore be explained in terms of weak interactions between rigid layers. These crystals represent a novel class of self-assembled layered materials, which can be utilized for various technological applications, where a combination of usually contradictory mechanical properties is desired.

show abstract

“…Especially, the supramolecular morphologies and properties can be easily modified by amino acids substitutions 24 , covalent conjugation 25 or co-assembly with external moieties 26 , 27 . For example, upon substitution of one F with tryptophan (W), self-assembling FW nanostructures present a smaller bandgap of 2.25 eV, compared to 3.25 eV of FF nanotubes 28 , thus showing improved conductive 29 and photoluminescent properties 24 . Moreover, recent studies revealed that cyclo-dipeptides with backbones of 2,5-diketopiperazine configurations, derived from dehydration condensation of linear dipeptides 16 , 30 , self-assemble into photoluminescent nanostructures different from their linear counterparts 31 , 32 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantum confined peptide assemblies with tunable visible to near-infrared spectral range

et al. 2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Quantum confined materials have been extensively studied for photoluminescent applications. Due to intrinsic limitations of low biocompatibility and challenging modulation, the utilization of conventional inorganic quantum confined photoluminescent materials in bio-imaging and bio-machine interface faces critical restrictions. Here, we present aromatic cyclo-dipeptides that dimerize into quantum dots, which serve as building blocks to further self-assemble into quantum confined supramolecular structures with diverse morphologies and photoluminescence properties. Especially, the emission can be tuned from the visible region to the near-infrared region (420 nm to 820 nm) by modulating the self-assembly process. Moreover, no obvious cytotoxic effect is observed for these nanostructures, and their utilization for in vivo imaging and as phosphors for light-emitting diodes is demonstrated. The data reveal that the morphologies and optical properties of the aromatic cyclo-dipeptide self-assemblies can be tuned, making them potential candidates for supramolecular quantum confined materials providing biocompatible alternatives for broad biomedical and opto-electric applications.

show abstract

Self-assembled peptide nanotubes as electronic materials: An evaluation from first-principles calculations

Cited by 48 publications

References 38 publications

Bioinspired Stable and Photoluminescent Assemblies for Power Generation

Bioinspired Stable and Photoluminescent Assemblies for Power Generation

Bioinspired Flexible and Tough Layered Peptide Crystals

Quantum confined peptide assemblies with tunable visible to near-infrared spectral range

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About