Phys.org July 23, 2021
Self-healing polymers, gels and other materials developed so far have been soft. To develop self-healing hard materials, an international team of researchers (India, Germany) grew bipyrazole organic crystals in tiny (2mm long by 0.2mm wide) needle shapes. When pressure was applied they broke but and then bounced back from the break into straight-line needles again, verifying that the material had truly healed. It is not clear if the type of crystals produced the team will be useful in any given product. However, the work shows that piezoelectric molecular crystals can be grown in ways that allow for self-healing. They suggest such crystals could likely find use in optical and nanoprobing devices, video screens, allowing smartphones to heal themselves after cracking when dropped…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
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