Self-Assembly of Hexagonal Peptide Microtubes and Their Optical Waveguiding

Hexagonal peptide microtubes are spontaneously formed upon solvent thermal annealing. They have diameters on the order of micrometers and reach several millimeters in length. The microtubes evolve hierarchically in a hexagonal packing pattern from the molecular level to the micrometer scale. Such crystalline peptide microtubes serve as an active optical waveguide, allowing for light propagation along the long axis.