Organogels resulting from competing self-assembly units in the gelator: Structure, dynamics, and photophysical behavior of gels formed from cholesterol-stilbene and cholesterol-squaraine gelators

Organogels formed from novel organic gelators containing a cholesterol tethered to squaraine dyes or trans-stilbene derivatives have been studied from several different perspectives. The two types of molecules are active toward several organic liquids, gelling in some cases at w/w percentages as low as 0.1. While relatively robust, macroscopically "dry" gels are formed in several cases, studies with a variety of probes indicate that much of the solvent may exist in domains that are essentially liquid-like in terms of their microenvironment. The gels have been imaged by atomic force microscopy and conventional and fluorescence microscopy, monitoring both the gelator fluorescence in the case of the stilbene-cholesterol gels and, the fluorescence of solutes dissolved in the solvent. Remarkably, our findings show that several of the gels are composed of similarly appearing fibrous structures visible at the nano-, micro-, and macroscale.