Abstract
Some biological macromolecules can control their own assembly into elegant hierarchical structures. Synthetic supramolecules are catching up fast, promising new advances for optical and biomedical materials. See Letter p.364 Self-templating is widely used in nature to synthesize hierarchical structures. Depending on the self-templating conditions, a number of structures with different characteristics can be formed from the same constituents. This study describes an elegant fabrication method that produces helically twisted functional materials directly onto a glass surface using a finely controlled one-step process. The starting material is the chiral colloidal particle, M13 phage, which forms liquid crystals. The particle self-assembles on the surface of a glass slide as it is pulled upwards out of the solution. By varying the phage concentration (the liquid crystalline phase of the solution) and the pulling speed, three distinct long-range-ordered supramolecular chiral structures can be produced, each with important optical and photonic properties. In addition, functionalization of the surface of the M13 phage with bioactive peptide ligands induces ordered growth of both soft and hard biological tissues.
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