Organic crystals with two-dimensional bending and manually twistable properties for flexible optical waveguides

Most organic crystals are brittle, which greatly restricts their applications in flexible smart materials. Herein, we reported two multi-flexible crystals. One of them exhibits two-dimensional (2D) elasticity, while the other one dual plasticity and elasticity along different directions. Their brittle polymorphs were also prepared to establish correlations structure-property from perspective crystal engineering. These can be manually twisted without fracture. Therefore, it was verified that 1D plastic elastic crystals, has not been before. Detailed crystallographic analyses, energy framework calculations nanoindentation tests used reveal mechanism multiple mechanical responses these It found properties ascribed large differences strength orientation between intermolecular interactions, together with unique molecular arrangement Finally, application crystalline materials field optical waveguide developed.