Naphthalene dipeptides have been shown to be useful low-molecular-weight gelators. Here
we have used a library to explore the relationship between the dipeptide sequence and the
hydrogelation efficiency. A number of the naphthalene dipeptides are crystallizable from
water, enabling us to investigate the comparison between the gel/fiber phase and the crystal
phase. We succeeded in crystallizing one example directly from the gel phase. Using X-ray
crystallography, molecular modeling, and X-ray fiber diffraction, we show that the molecular …