Fabrication of nanocrystal tube using peptide tubule as template and its application as signal-enhancing cuvette

A method of fabricating nanocrystal tubules was developed by coating carbox ylic acid--thiol capped Au nanocrystals on peptide tubule templates to form the Au nanocrystal tubules, Hydrogen bonding between the amide groups of t he tubules and the carboxylic acid groups of the nanocrystals was used as a driving force for this assembly process. The Au nanocrystal tubules with h ollow structures were applied to hold and analyze trace molecules as signal -enhancing cuvettes for Raman spectroscopy. The Raman scattering of trace R hodamine B on the Au nanocrystal-coated tubule was enhanced by a factor of 10(5).