Nonlinear Optical Properties of Triphenylalanine-based Peptide Nanostructures

Abstract

Nonlinear optical properties of peptide nanobelts and peptide nanospheres, the two types of self-assembled triphenylalanine-based peptide nanostructures, are studied. Nanobelts nonlinear susceptibility tensor components are evaluated, and nanobelts crystal structure and crystallographic orientation are defined on the basis of nonlinear optical mapping and polarization dependences of the second harmonic signal. The results obtained suggest that it is possible to use these materials as biologically compatible nonlinear optical converters.