Structural transition in peptide nanotubes.

Phase transitions in organic and inorganic materials are well-studied classical phenomena, where a change in the crystal space group symmetry induces a wide variation of physical properties, permitted by the crystalline symmetry in each phase. Here we observe a conformational induced transition in bioinspired peptide nanotubes (PNTs). We found that the PNTs change their original molecular assembly from a linear peptide conformation to a cyclic one, followed by a change of the nanocrystalline structure from a noncentrosymmetric hexagonal space group to a centrosymmetric orthorhombic space group. The observed transition is irreversible and induces a profound variation in the PNTs properties, from the microscopic to the macroscopic level. In this context, we follow the unique changes in the molecular, morphological, piezoelectric, second harmonic generation, and wettability properties of the PNTs.

Adjustable photoluminescence of peptide nanotubes coatings.

Peptide nanotubes (PNTs) have become a significant subject at the biological and bionanotechnology field. Here we describe the spectroscopic analysis of PNTs coatings, which were deposited by a physical vapor deposition technology. We show that we can adjust the electronic, and consequently the spectroscopic, photoluminescence (PL) properties of the PNT coatings, simply by changing the parameters of the PNT deposition. We show that by controlling the PNT deposition parameters we can observe different PL properties of the PNT coatings and significantly strengthen the PL in the visible blue region. We further explain that the strong blue emission is resulting from the conversion of the monomers to a different chemical structure. The strong blue emission, and our ability to adjust it, promotes the use of the PNTs as organic materials for light emitting devices.