Amplified Spontaneous Emission (ASE) from Ultra-Large Peptide-Based Structures Filled with Gain Media

Among the various shapes that crystals made of auto-assembled short peptides take, some of them form fiber like structures with an empty core. In particular, the phenylalanine dipeptide (FF) grows cylindrically with hexagonal shape and can form tubes with significant empty volume that could be filled with solution (cf Fig. 1). This property, combined with the recently reported interesting optical and physical properties of FF fibers such as piezo-electricity, high stiffness, transparency, electro-optical response and nonlinear optical response [1-4] can lead to various applications such as an optically active component, or optical component adapted for drug delivery made of this bio-compatible material.