Abstract:
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.
