A chiral single-component sol–gel platform with highly integrated optical properties

An enantiomeric pair of luminescent gelators covalently-conjugated with hexathiobenzene and glutamic acid derivatives was designed. The resultant single-component sol–gel system provides a material platform with a combination of aggregation-induced emission (AIE), room-temperature phosphorescence (RTP), and circularly polarized luminescence (CPL). All of these optical properties can exhibit an on–off behavior by thermal stimuli.