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Title: Ferroelectric Polarization and Second Harmonic Generation in Supramolecular Cocrystals with Two Axes of Charge-Transfer

Journal Article · · Journal of the American Chemical Society
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.7b02279· OSTI ID:1821883

Ferroelectricity in organic materials remains a subject of great interest, given its potential impact as lightweight information storage media. Here we report supramolecular charge-transfer cocrystals formed by electron acceptor and donor molecules that exhibit ferroelectric behavior along two distinct crystallographic axes. The solid-state superstructure of the cocrystals reveals that a 2:1 ratio of acceptor to donor molecules assemble into nearly orthogonal mixed stacks in which the molecules are positioned for charge-transfer in face-to-face and edge-to-face orientations, held together by an extended hydrogen-bonding network. Polarization hysteresis was observed along the face-to-face and edge-to-face axes at room temperature. The noncentrosymmetric nature of the cocrystals, required to observe ferroelectric behavior, is demonstrated using second harmonic generation measurements. This finding suggests the possibility of designing supramolecular arrays in which organic molecules support multidimensional information storage.

Research Organization:
Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL (United States); Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC) (United States). Center for Bio-Inspired Energy Science (CBES)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
Grant/Contract Number:
FG02-00ER45810
OSTI ID:
1821883
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1846799
Journal Information:
Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 139, Issue 27; ISSN 0002-7863
Publisher:
American Chemical Society (ACS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 53 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Reversible phase transition and switchable dielectric behaviors triggered by rotation and order-disorder motions of crowns journal January 2018
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