Mechanically Responsive Dynamic Molecular Crystals

"In recent times various intriguing dynamic single crystals that respond to external stimuli such as mechanical stress, heat, light, solvent, humidity, have been reported, but their systematic design remains a challenge. In my talk, I shall discuss the possible molecular level deformation mechanisms involved in organic single crystals and further, demonstrate a crystal engineering approach to design mechanically reconfigurable, plastically flexible single crystals of various compounds, i.e. by introducing active slip planes in structures via different non-interfering supramolecular weak interactions, namely van der Waals (vdW), π-stacking and hydrogen bonding groups [1, 2]. Soft interactions have a great potential for tuning mechanical behaviour of ordered functional molecular materials."

References: 

[1] Panda, M. K., Ghosh, S., Yasuda, N., Moriwaki, T., Mukherjee, G. D., Reddy, C. M., Naumov, P. Nature Chem. 2015, 7, 65-72
[2] Krishna, G. R., Devarapalli, R., Lal, G. Reddy, C. M., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2016, 138, 13561−13567