Chirality Enabled Liquid Crystalline Physical Gels with High Modulus but Low Driving Voltage.

Self-supporting liquid crystalline physical gels with facile electro-optic response are highly desirable, but their development is challenging because both the storage modulus and driving voltage increase simultaneously with gelator loading. Herein, we report liquid crystalline gels with high modulus but low driving voltage. This behavior is enabled by chirality transfer from molecular level to three-dimensional (3D) fibrous networks during the self-assembly of 1,4-benzenedicarboxamide phenylalanine derivatives. Interestingly, the critical gel concentration (CGC) is as low as 0.1 wt%. Our findings open doors to understanding and exploiting the role of chirality in organic gels.