Captain DeNeve’s research interests span materials science, nanophotonics, ultrafast spectroscopic methods, laser systems, optics, and physical testing of fibers and composites. In his most recent research group, he used ultrafast vibrational spectroscopy to study molecular structure and dynamics. The development of a deeper physical understanding of peptide and protein self-assembly can help guide the design of new functional nanomaterials. Recent increases in nanotechnology investment have brought about interest in the development of materials that can self-assemble into well-defined structures at the nanoscale. Although reproducible and ordered structures are common in biology, the production of well-ordered reproducible structures at the nanometer scale presents a significant engineering challenge for advancing materials science To help gain a more fundamental understanding of self-assembling materials, the synthesis of isotope-labeled peptides with systematic variations to peptide sequence and isotope-labeled residues has provided the means to measure how noncovalent interactions such as hydrophobicity, hydrogen bonding, electrostatics, and van der Waals forces affect the self-assembly process.
