Department of Nanoscience, Faculty of Engineering, Sojo University, 4-22-1 Ikeda, Kumamoto 860-0082, Japan.
Chemistry. 2012 Mar 5;18(10):2832-8. doi: 10.1002/chem.201103249. Epub 2012 Jan 30.
A unique class of oligothiophene-based organogelator bearing two crown ethers at both ends was synthesized. This compound could gelatinize several organic solvents, forming one-dimensional fibrous aggregates. From the observation of circular dichroism, it was confirmed that the helical handedness of the fibrous assembly is controllable by the chirality of 1,2-bisammonium guests, thus suggesting that one guest molecule bridges two gelator molecules through the crown-ammonium interaction. Interestingly, we have found that such chirality is created by thermal gelation, whereas it disappears by thixotropic gelation. The new finding implies that the present organogel system is applicable as a reversible switching memory device, featuring memory creation by a heat mode and memory erasing by a mechanical mode.
一种独特的基于寡聚噻吩的两末端冠醚有机凝胶剂被合成。该化合物可以使几种有机溶剂凝胶化，形成一维纤维状聚集体。通过圆二色性观察，证实纤维组装的螺旋手性可以通过 1,2-双铵基客体的手性来控制，因此表明一个客体分子通过冠醚-铵相互作用桥接两个凝胶剂分子。有趣的是，我们发现这种手性是通过热凝胶化产生的，而通过触变凝胶化则会消失。这一新发现意味着目前的有机凝胶体系可用作一种可逆切换存储设备，其特点是通过热模式创建存储和通过机械模式擦除存储。
