Organic supramolecular architectures and their sol-gel transcription to silica nanotubes

The design of artificial models of "biomineralization" processes that utilize sol-gel polymerization has led to a merging of inorganic materials research and supramolecular organic chemistry. This article introduces self-assembled superstructures of sugar-integrated and crown-appended cholesterol gelators, which are used as versatile building blocks in organogels and as templates for sol-gel transcription. This article focuses on the use of self-assembled organic superstructures in the creation of novel inorganic materials with controlled morphologies. (C) 2003 The Japan Chemical Journal Forum and Wiley Periodicals, Inc.