Investigations of the supramolecular structure of individual diphenylalanine nano- and microtubes by polarized Raman microspectroscopy.

Polarized Raman microspectroscopy and atomic force microscopy were used to obtain quantitative information regarding the molecular structure of individual diphenylalanine (FF) nano- and microtubes. The frequencies of the Raman spectral bands corresponding to the amide I (1690 cm(-1)) and amide III (1249 cm(-1)) indicated that the FF-molecules interact by hydrogen bonding at the N-H and not at the C═O sites. The calculated mean orientation angles of the principal axes of the Raman tensors (PARTs) obtained from the polarized Raman spectral measurements were 41 ± 4° for the amide I and 59 ± 5° for amide III. On the basis of the orientation of the PART for the amide I mode, it was found that the C═O bond is oriented at an angle of 8 ± 4° to the tube axis. These values did not vary significantly with the diameter of the tubes (range 400-1700 nm) and were in agreement with the molecular structure proposed previously for larger crystalline specimens.