Soft Optical Devices from Self-Healing Gels Formed by Oil and Sugar-Based Organogelators

摘要

Polymeric gels have attracted much attention because of their application in cosmetics, medicine, the food industry, controlled release, the development of smart materials, and so forth. Recently the focus has shifted to supramolecular gels formed by self-assembly of small monomeric species through noncovalent interactions, owing to the reversibility of their formation and their degradability, homogeneity, and tunability, which make them superior to polymeric gels. Different classes of low-molecular-weight organogelators (LMWOs) that can congeal a variety of organic solvents have been reported. However, there are only limited examples of harvesting function from these novel materials. Exploration of novel functions from these soft materials continues to be a challenging and exciting task. Herein we report two supergelators that can congeal oils and hydrocarbon solvents to give strong, self-supporting, and highly transparent gels with self-healing properties. We also demonstrate novel applications of these transparent oil gels for making soft optical devices.