Peptide Optical waveguides

Small-scale optical devices, designed and fabricated onto one dielectric substrate, create integrated optical chip like their microelectronic analogues. These photonic circuits, based on diverse physical phenomena such as light-matter interaction, propagation of electromagnetic waves in a thin dielectric material, nonlinear and electro-optical effects, allow transmission, distribution, modulation, and processing of optical signals in optical communication systems, chemical and biological sensors, and more. The key component of these optical circuits providing both optical processing and photonic interconnections is light waveguides. Optical confinement and transmitting of the optical waves inside the waveguide material are possible due to the higher refractive index of the waveguides in comparison with their surroundings. In this work, we propose a novel field of bionanophotonics based on a new concept of optical waveguiding in synthetic elongated peptide nanostructures composed of ordered peptide dipole biomolecules. New technology of controllable deposition of peptide optical waveguiding structures by nanofountain pen technique is developed. Experimental studies of refractive index, optical transparency, and linear and nonlinear waveguiding in out-of-plane and in-plane diphenylalanine peptide nanotubes have been conducted. Optical waveguiding phenomena in peptide structures are simulated by the finite difference time domain method. The advantages of this new class of bio-optical waveguides are high refractive index contrast, wide spectral range of optical transparency, large optical nonlinearity, and electro-optical effect, making them promising for new applications in integrated multifunctional photonic circuits. Copyright © 2016 European Peptide Society and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.