Exceptionally Plastic/Elastic Organic Crystals of a Naphthalidenimine‐Boron Complex Show Flexible Optical Waveguide Properties

The design of molecular compounds that exhibit flexibility is an emerging area of research. Although a fair amount of success has been achieved in the design of plastic or elastic crystals, realizing multidimensional plastic and elastic bending remains challenging. We report herein a naphthalidenimi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Chemistry : a European journal 2020-09, Vol.26 (52), p.11979-11984
Main Authors: Naim, Khalid, Singh, Manjeet, Sharma, Sachin, Nair, Rajesh V., Venugopalan, Paloth, Chandra Sahoo, Subash, Neelakandan, Prakash P.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Boron
Boron compounds
Chemistry
crystal engineering
Crystallography
Crystals
Elastic bending
flexible crystals
fluoroalkyl chains
Imines
luminescence
Mechanical properties
Optical properties
Optical waveguides
Optoelectronics
Organic crystals
Plastics
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Summary:The design of molecular compounds that exhibit flexibility is an emerging area of research. Although a fair amount of success has been achieved in the design of plastic or elastic crystals, realizing multidimensional plastic and elastic bending remains challenging. We report herein a naphthalidenimine–boron complex that showed size‐dependent dual mechanical bending behavior whereas its parent Schiff base was brittle. Detailed crystallographic and spectroscopic analysis revealed the importance of boron in imparting the interesting mechanical properties. Furthermore, the luminescence of the molecule was turned‐on subsequent to boron complexation, thereby allowing it to be explored for multimode optical waveguide applications. Our in‐depth study of the size‐dependent plastic and elastic bending of the crystals thus provides important insights in molecular engineering and could act as a platform for the development of future smart flexible materials for optoelectronic applications. A little light bending: Boron complexation imparts multidimensional plastic and elastic bending, and luminescence properties to an otherwise brittle and non‐fluorescent compound. These features allow this molecule to be used as a flexible optical waveguide capable of propagating light of various wavelengths.
ISSN:0947-6539
1521-3765
DOI:10.1002/chem.202002641