Although self-assembly of various peptides has been widely applied, it is challenging to obtain single-crystalline and layer-by-layered nanostructures in a two-dimensional system. Here, we report a method for controlling the morphology and crystal growth at room temperature by a redox-active peptide template that can specifically co-assemble with metal ions. During the crystal growth, a silver ion-coordinated α-helical peptide (+3HN-YYACAYY-COO-) induces long-range atomic ordering at the air/water interface, which leads to multilayered single-crystalline silver nanosheets without an additional annealing process. Furthermore, this peptide template can facilitate efficient electron transfer between the independent metal nanosheets to improve electrochemical properties. We expect that this peptide template-based single-crystal growth method can be extended to synthesize other materials.
Keywords: layer-by-layer nanostructures; long-range ordering; peptides; single crystal; template.