Discovery of ferroelectricity in natural product androstane

Abstract Progesterone and its derivatives attracted widespread interest because of their applications in medicine, health care birth control, which is the main active ingredient contraceptive pills known as one five chemistry discoveries that changed human life. Although research pharmacological effects on pill-related compounds has been around for decades, ferroelectricity long overlooked. Here, we report 4-androsten-3-one-5-ene-17-carboxylic acid, a derivative progesterone, an organic single-component ferroelectric, confirmed by polarization–electric field hysteresis loops. It crystallizes monoclinic space group P 2 1 with polar packing structure undergoes reversible structural phase transition at high temperature 489 K. Thermal analysis revealed can persist up to 533 K, giving wide working range. As first ferroelectric steroid biomaterials, acid shows great potential flexible devices, biomedical bio-machines so on.