3. SUPRAMOLECULAR CHEMISTRY OF CARBON NANOSTRUCTURES
3.1. Self-Assembly with photo, electro and/or bio-active systems
In recent years, our group has been involved on the synthesis of bioinspired electroactive molecules that self-assemble in the range of the nanoscale to create highly ordered functional nanomaterials. Particularly, peptides and proteins have been used as biomolecular template for the fabrication of n/p-type photoconductivity materials. In our first approach, peptides were used as a biomolecule for organize different electroactive units such as quaterthiophene and exTTF. We study the self-assembly process of these petides-based electroactive units which led to the formation of p-type nanofibers. Employing ionic self-assembly with complementary electron-acceptor units (perylene-bisimide, C60 and SWCNT), n/p-co-assembled materials were obtained revealing high photocondutivity values (0.8 cm2V-1s-1).
Quaterthiophene and exTTF based peptide (top) and perilenbisimide and fullerene derivatives (bottom) endowed with the suitable functionality to achieve the segregated and alternately stacked donor/acceptor nanodomains (right).
We also explored the use of proteins to construct sophisticated macroscopic materials with a precise control on the organization of electroactive units. In this regard, consensus tetraticopeptide repeat protein (CTPR) was designed to organize porphyrin units along their surface.
Representation of the different approaches made with mutated CTPR protein to obtain bioelectronics materials
Furthermore, the hydrophobic inner cavity of the CTPR protein allowed accommodating fullerene and SWCNT providing a platform to obtain 2D crystalline n/p-materials with long-range molecular order and photogenerated charge carrier capacity.