Stimulated Emission from Rhodamine 6G Aggregates Self-Assembled on Amyloid Protein Fibrils
Journal article, 2015
Amyloid fibrils are excellent bioderived nanotemplates for controlling molecular and optical properties of small molecules such as organic dyes. Here we demonstrate that two representative fibril-forming proteins, lysozyme and insulin, from the amyloids family can determine the optical signature of rhodamine 6G. Their structural variety leads to a unique molecular arrangement of dye aggregates on the biotemplate surface. This significantly influences the light amplification threshold as well as the stimulated emission profiles, which show remarkable broadband wavelength tunability. We show in addition that amyloid fibrils can be potentially used in constructing broadband emission biolasers.
biolaser
nanotemplates
lysozyme and insulin proteins
rhodamine 6G
amyloid fibrils
laser dye
biomaterial
molecular crowding
random lasing
stimulated emission
Author
Piotr Hanczyc
University of California at Santa Barbara
L. Sznitko
Wrocław University of Science and Technology
C. J. Zhong
University of California at Santa Barbara
A.J. Heeger
University of California at Santa Barbara
ACS Photonics
2330-4022 (eISSN)
Vol. 2 12 1755-1762Areas of Advance
Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (SO 2010-2017, EI 2018-)
Life Science Engineering (2010-2018)
Materials Science
Subject Categories
Physical Chemistry
Atom and Molecular Physics and Optics
Materials Chemistry
Biophysics
Organic Chemistry
DOI
10.1021/acsphotonics.5b00458