Influence of the gelator structure and solvent on the organisation and chirality of self-assembling fibrillar networks

Chromophoric probes of naphthalimide moieties enable evaluation of their assembling behaviour photophysically through fluorescence spectroscopy and microscopy, and circular dichroism. These experiments highlight the influence of the nature of the chemical substitution of the organogelator. Very interesting results were also obtained by performing CD experiments showing that the nature of the solvent should modify the chirality of self-assembled aggregates. Highly oriented network structures were observed in the gel state and disappeared in isotropic solution. Microfibrous self-aggregation of organogels is in situ observed via fluorescence and SHG imaging and confirmed by transmission electron microscopic analysis of the dried sample.