Abstract

Non-centrosymmetric molecular crystals have a plethora of applications, such as piezoelectric transducers, energy storage and nonlinear optical materials owing to their unique structural order which is absent in other synthetic materials. As most crystals are brittle, their efficiency declines upon prolonged usage due to fatigue or catastrophic failure, limiting their utilities. Some natural substances, like bone, enamel, leaf and skin, function efficiently, last a life-time, thanks to their inherent self-healing nature. Therefore, incorporating self-healing ability in crystalline materials will greatly broaden their scope. Here, we report single crystals of a dibenzoate derivative, capable of self-healing within milliseconds via autonomous actuation. Systematic quantitative experiments reveal the limit of mechanical forces that the self-healing crystals can withstand. As a proof-of-concept, we also demonstrate that our self-healed crystals can retain their second harmonic generation (SHG) with high efficiency. Kinematic analysis of the actuation in our system also revealed its impressive performance parameters, and shows actuation response times in the millisecond range.

There are many potential applications for non-centrosymmetric molecular crystals, but due to their typical brittle nature, efficiency of applications declines on prolonged use. Here, the authors report an autonomous self-healing ability of dibenzoate derivative single crystals that can retain its non-linear optical response.

Details

Title
Autonomous self-healing organic crystals for nonlinear optics
Author
Mondal, Saikat 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Tanari, Pratap 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Roy, Samrat 2 ; Bhunia, Surojit 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Chowdhury, Rituparno 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Pal, Arun K. 3   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Datta, Ayan 3   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Pal, Bipul 2   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Reddy, C. Malla 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo 

 Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata, Department of Chemical Sciences, Nadia, India (GRID:grid.417960.d) (ISNI:0000 0004 0614 7855) 
 Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata, Department of Physical Sciences, Nadia, India (GRID:grid.417960.d) (ISNI:0000 0004 0614 7855) 
 Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, School of Chemical Sciences, Kolkata, India (GRID:grid.417929.0) (ISNI:0000 0001 1093 3582) 
Pages
6589
Publication year
2023
Publication date
2023
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20411723
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2878558003
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2023. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.