Designing sequence-defined biomimetic peptoids for self-assembly

Abstract

Nanostructured inorganic materials provide unique properties in various fields, including plasmonics, catalysis, sensing, and optics compared with their bulk counterparts. Inspired by sophisticated nanostructures created by living organisms using sequence-defined biomolecules, scientists are developing various biomimetic approaches to control inorganic material formation. In this work, we designed a series of sequence-defined peptoids. We demonstrated their self-assembly into nanosheets, nanotubes, and nanofibers, potentially used as templates for inorganic material formation. We presented the morphologies of these self-assembled structures could be controlled through the variation in peptoid building blocks. The knowledge learned here will benefit our future use of these peptoid materials as templates to induce the formation of inorganic materials various morphologies.