Physicochemical Properties of Organic Molecular Ferroelectric Diisopropylammonium Chloride Thin Films

We fabricated ferroelectric films of the organic molecular diisopropylammonium chloride (DIPAC) using the dip-coating technique and characterized their properties using various methods. Fourier-transform infrared, scanning electron microscopy, and X-ray diffraction analysis revealed the structural features of the films. We also performed ab-initio calculations to investigate the electronic and polar properties of the DIPAC crystal, which were found to be consistent with the experimental results. In particular, the optical band gap of the DIPAC crystal was estimated to be around 4.5 eV from the band structure total density-of-states obtained by HSE06 hybrid functional methods, in good agreement with the value derived from the Tauc plot analysis (4.05 ± 0.16 eV). The films displayed an island-like morphology on the surface and showed increasing electrical conductivity with temperature, with a calculated thermal activation energy of 2.24 ± 0.03 eV. Our findings suggest that DIPAC films could be a promising alternative to lead-based perovskites for various applications such as piezoelectric devices, optoelectronics, sensors, data storage, and microelectromechanical systems.

Record high-Tc and large practical utilization level of electric polarization in metal-free molecular antiferroelectric solid solutions

Metal-free antiferroelectric materials are holding a promise for energy storage application, owing to their unique merits of wearability, environmental friendliness, and structure tunability. Despite receiving great interests, metal-free antiferroelectrics are quite limited and it is a challenge to acquire new soft antiferroelectric candidates. Here, we have successfully exploited binary CMBrxI1-x and CMBrxCl1-x solid solution as single crystals (0 ≤ x ≤ 1, where CM is cyclohexylmethylammonium). A molecule-level modification can effectively enhance Curie temperature. Emphatically, the binary CM-chloride salt shows the highest antiferroelectric-to-paraelectric Curie temperature of ~453 K among the known molecular antiferroelectrics. Its characteristic double electrical hysteresis loops provide a large electric polarization up to ~11.4 μC/cm2, which endows notable energy storage behaviors. To our best knowledge, this work provides an effective solid-solution methodology to the targeted design of new metal-free antiferroelectric candidates toward biocompatible energy storage devices.

Physical vapor deposited organic ferroelectric diisopropylammonium bromide film and its self-powered photodetector characteristics

Organic diisopropylammonium bromide (DIPAB) is a promising material with superior ferroelectric characteristics. However, the DIPAB continuous film, which is essential to explore its application potential, is challenging because its crystallization kinetics favors island-like microcrystalline growth. In this work, the continuous and uniform deposition of organic ferroelectric DIPAB film on a single crystalline Si(100) substrate is demonstrated by a thermal evaporation process. Structural and optical studies reveal that the film is c-axis oriented with an optical bandgap of 3.52 eV. The topographic image displays well-connected grain-like surface morphology with ∼2 nm roughness. The ferroelectric domain studies illustrate the in-plane orientation of the domains, which is in accordance with c-axis oriented film where polarization is along the in-plane b-axis. The phase and amplitude responses of the domains display hysteresis and butterfly characteristics, respectively and thereby endorse the ferroelectric nature of the film. Importantly, it is demonstrated that the DIPAB film exhibits remarkable self-powered UV-Vis photodetector characteristics with responsivity of 0.66 mA W^-1 and detectivity of 2.20 × 10⁹ Jones at 11.45 mW cm^-2 light intensity. The fabricated DIPAB film reported in this work can widen its application potential in self-powered photodetector and other optoelectronic devices.

13C NMR of DIPAC and DIPAB organic ferroelectrics

The diisopropylammonium chloride (C₆H₁₆ClN, DIPAC) and diisopropylammonium bromide (C₆H₁₆BrN, DIPAB) molecular crystals are recently discovered ferroelectrics with sufficiently high spontaneous polarization and Curie temperature. We performed first studies of these crystals by ¹³C NMR. CP MAS spectra were collected within large temperature ranges covering the Curie points. The reconstructive phase transition from the initial orthorhombic P2₁2₁2₁ structure of DIPAB to the monoclinic ferroelectric P2₁ structure leads to an abrupt alteration in the ¹³C spectrum. The ¹³C spectra for DIPAC and DIPAB in the ferroelectric P2₁ phase are quite similar with four lines at lower frequencies, which correspond to the CH₃ groups, and two lines with close chemical shifts, which correspond to two CH groups. The transition into the paraphase leads to gradual reduction of the interline distances in the low-frequency quadruplet and in the doublet. The step-like changes in the interline frequency shifts at this transition indicating its first order. The analysis of the spectrum evolution in the paraphase shows that only a CH group lays in the reflection plane above the P2₁  →  P2₁/m transition, while the second CH group only moves closer to the reflection plane upon further heating.

Dielectric properties of an organic ferroelectric of bromide diisopropylammonium embedded into the pores of nanosized Al2O3 films

The study presents experimental results for investigating linear and nonlinear dielectric properties of nanocomposites based on bromide diisopropylammonium (C₆H₁₆NBr, DIPAB) and aluminum oxide films (Al₂O₃) with pore diameter of 330, 100 and 60 nm. It was indicated that the phase transition was blurred and shifted toward lower temperatures. This anomaly became more significant with decreasing pore size. The reduction of phase transition temperature in the nanocomposites, containing DIPAB, was consistent with theoretical models for the influence of size effects on the structural phase transition.

High-Temperature Molecular Ferroelectric Tris(2-hydroxyethyl) Ammonium Bromide with Dielectric Relaxation

We obtained one new molecular ferroelectric material tris(2-hydroxyethyl) ammonium bromide (TAB) that crystallizes in aqueous solution at room temperature with a space group of R3m which belongs to ten polar space groups. There is a paraelectric-to-ferroelectric phase transition at 424 K (from hexagonal R3̅m to hexagonal R3m phase). Such a high transition temperature is close to that of diisopropylamine bromide (426 K) and higher than that of many other molecular ferroelectrics, such as triethylmethylammonium tetrabromoferrate(III) (360 K); some of the organic-inorganic perovskite ferroelectrics, such as (cyclohexylammonium)₂PbBr₄ (363 K); and some inorganic ferroelectrics, including BaTiO₃ (393 K). The saturated polarization and the coercive field of TAB measured from the ferroelectric hysteresis loop are about 0.54 μC·cm^-2 and 0.62 kV/cm, respectively. Given its superior performance, including high phase transition temperature, room-temperature ferroelectricity, small coercive electric field, and adjustable ladder-shaped dielectric constant, TAB will have many potential applications.

Synthesis and crystal structure of a new polymorph of diisopropylammonium trichloroacetate, C8H16Cl3NO2

C8H16Cl3NO2, monoclinic, P21 (no. 4), a = 9.1804(5), Å, b = 19.4133(10) Å, c = 13.9191(7) Å, β = 90.593(3)°, V = 2480.6(2) Å3, Z = 8, R gt(F) = 0.0605, wR ref(F 2) = 0.1387, T = 296(2) K.

Reversible high temperature dielectric switching in a 2H-perovskite compound: [Me3NCH2CH3]CdCl3

A new organic–inorganic 2H-perovskite compound shows a noteworthy switchable dielectric phase transition at high temperature.

Doping induced dielectric anomaly below the Curie temperature in molecular ferroelectric diisopropylammonium bromide

A dielectric anomaly induced by doping has been observed at about 340 K in chlorine-doped diisopropylammonium bromide. The dielectric anomaly has a switchable behaviour, which indicates potential applications on switches and sensors. Temperature-dependent Raman spectrum, X-ray diffraction and differential scanning calorimetry do not show any anomaly around the dielectric anomaly temperature, which prove that the dielectric anomaly does not come from structure phase transition and has no specific heat variety. It is assumed that this dielectric anomaly can be attributed to the freezing of ferroelectric domain walls induced by the pinning of point defects.

A paraelectric-ferroelectric phase transition of an organically templated zinc oxalate coordination polymer

Water-presence dependent switchable ferroelectricity was discovered in the hybrid organic-inorganic zinc oxalate 1D coordination polymer (DABCOH2)[Zn(C2O4)2]·3H2O (DZnOH, where DABCOH2: diprotonated 1.4-diazoniabicyclo[2.2.2]octane). The compound undergoes a reversible para-ferroelectric phase transition at 207 K from room temperature centrosymmetric phase I (space group P21/n) to low-temperature non-centrosymmetric phase II (space group P21). The microscopic mechanism of the phase transition is directly associated with the reconstruction of the hydrogen-bond network. On heating, the crystals exhibit a reversible single-crystal to single-crystal transformation concerned with the removal of all water molecules giving anhydrous DABCO zinc oxalate (DABCOH2)[Zn(C2O4)2] (DZnO). The dehydrated compound does not show ferroelectric properties.

Morpholinium chloroindate(iii) complex: a rare acentric structural arrangement leading to piezoelectric properties

In(iii)-Based morpholinium complex, [C4H10NO]+[InCl5(C4H10NO)]−: crystal structure, origin of the structure polarity, and evidence of piezoelectric properties.

Vibrational spectroscopic and computational studies on diisopropylammonium bromide

Diisopropylammonium bromide (DIPAB) can be crystallized either in an orthorhombic (P2₁2₁2₁) or in a monoclinic (P2₁) structure at room temperature depending on synthesis conditions. The non-polar orthorhombic structure exhibits a subtle, irreversible transformation into the ferroelectric monoclinic-II (m-II) phase above ~421K. At a slightly higher temperature of 426K this m-II (P2₁) phase reversibly transforms into a disordered, paraelectric monoclinic-I (P2₁/m) structure. We synthesized DIPAB in the orthorhombic structure, heated it to obtain the m-II phase and carried out a systematic study of their Raman and IR spectra. We obtained the phonon irreducible representations from factor group analysis of the orthorhombic and m-II structures based on the reported structural information. DIPAB is an organic molecular crystal, and the vibrational spectra in the intramolecular region (200-3500cm^-1) of the two different phases are identical to each other, indicating weak inter-molecular interactions in both crystalline structures. In the low wavenumber region (10-150cm^-1) the Raman spectra of the two phases are different due to their sensitivity to molecular environment. We also carried out first principles calculations using Gaussian 09 and CASTEP codes to analyze the vibrational frequencies. Mode assignments were facilitated by isolated molecule calculations that are also in good agreement with intramolecular vibrations, whereas CASTEP (solid state) results could explain the external modes.

Temperature-induced reversible structural phase transition and X-ray diffuse scattering in 2-amino-3-nitropyridinium hydrogen sulfate

The novel polar material 2-amino-3-nitropyridinium hydrogen sulfate, C5H6N3O2(HSO4) (abbreviated as 2A3NP-HS), was obtained and structurally characterized by means of single-crystal X-ray diffraction. At room temperature, 2A3NP-HS crystallizes as a non-centrosymmetric disordered phase (I) in the orthorhombicPna21space group. On cooling below 298 K, 2A3NP-HS undergoes a reversible phase transition to phase (II) with the monoclinic non-centrosymmetricP21space group. This transition might be classified as an `order–disorder' type. The structural details in both phases are analysed. Additionally, for phase (I), in the 304–365 K temperature range, diffuse scattering was found to be present in the form of elongated streaks parallel to thea* direction. This can be unravelled when implementing a short-range order affecting anionic cationic ribbons occurring in the structure, with correlations acting both in thea-direction and in thebc-plane. The results of Monte Carlo simulations, adapting a two-dimensional Ising-type model, reveal the formation of domains, which areb-elongated and thin alonga. Locally, the stacking of the ribbons in the domains reflects the ordered arrangement observed in the low-temperature monoclinic phase (II).

Phase sequence in diisopropylammonium iodide: avoided ferroelectricity by the appearance of a reconstructed phase

Crystals of diisopropylammonium iodide are synthesized, grown and characterized.

Growth and structural and physical properties of diisopropylammonium bromide molecular single crystals

Large single crystals of the promising molecular organic ferroelectric diisopropylammonium bromide (DIPAB) have been grown by the solution technique. A structural study was performed using single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. The twin element of a selected DIPAB crystal was identified by a morphological study. Intermolecular interactions present in the grown crystal were explored by Hirshfeld surface (three-dimensional) and fingerprint plot (two-dimensional) studies. In UV–vis spectroscopy, the DIPAB crystal has shown high transparency with a wide direct band gap of 5.65 eV. In the photoluminescence spectrum, sharp UV and blue emissions were observed at 370, 392, 417 and 432 nm. The electrical properties were investigated by measuring the dielectric constant (∊) and loss (tanδ) of the grown crystal. The DIPAB crystal exhibits a promising piezoelectric charge coefficient (d33) value of 18 pC N−1, which makes it suitable for transducer applications. A high ferroelectric Curie temperature (Tc≃ 425 K) with high remnant polarization (20.52 µC cm−2) and high coercive field (12.25 kV cm−1) were observed in the as-grown crystal. Vickers microhardness analysis shows that the value of Meyer's index (n= 7.27) belongs to the soft material range, which was also confirmed by void analysis along three crystallographic axes. It is shown that the DIPAB crystal has potential for optical, ferroelectric and piezoelectric applications.

Flexible ferroelectric organic crystals

Flexible organic materials possessing useful electrical properties, such as ferroelectricity, are of crucial importance in the engineering of electronic devices. Up until now, however, only ferroelectric polymers have intrinsically met this flexibility requirement, leaving small-molecule organic ferroelectrics with room for improvement. Since both flexibility and ferroelectricity are rare properties on their own, combining them in one crystalline organic material is challenging. Herein, we report that trisubstituted haloimidazoles not only display ferroelectricity and piezoelectricity-the properties that originate from their non-centrosymmetric crystal lattice-but also lend their crystalline mechanical properties to fine-tuning in a controllable manner by disrupting the weak halogen bonds between the molecules. This element of control makes it possible to deliver another unique and highly desirable property, namely crystal flexibility. Moreover, the electrical properties are maintained in the flexible crystals.

The growth mechanism and ferroelectric domains of diisopropylammonium bromide films synthesized via 12-crown-4 addition at room temperature

Diisopropylammonium bromide (DIPAB) has attracted great attention as a molecular ferroelectric with large spontaneous polarization and high Curie temperature. It is hard to grow the ferroelectric phase DIPAB because of the appearance of the non-ferroelectric phase DIPAB at room temperature. Here, a ferroelectric thin film of DIPAB was successfully fabricated on a Si substrate using a spin coating method from aqueous solution via 12-crown-4 addition at room temperature. The ferroelectric DIPAB film with a thickness of hundreds of nanometers is distributed discontinuously on the substrate in narrow strips. The direction of polarization is along the narrow strip. Piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM) shows that the ferroelectric films have two kinds of domain structures: noncharged antiparallel stripe domains and charged head-to-head (H-H)/tail-to-tail (T-T) type domains. 12-crown-4 has been proved to play important roles in forming the H-H/T-T type domains. The Chynoweth method shows that the DIPAB films synthesized in this way show a better pyroelectric effect than DIPAB crystals.

Introducing DDEC6 atomic population analysis: part 2. Computed results for a wide range of periodic and nonperiodic materials

DDEC6 atomic population analysis gives excellent performance for small and large molecules, porous solids, dense solids, solid surfaces, organometallic complexes, nanoclusters, and magnetic materials.

Strong Improper Ferroelasticity and Weak Canted Ferroelectricity in a Martensitic-Like Phase Transition of Diisobutylammonium Bromide

Diisobutylammonium bromide is found to be a unique improper ferroelastic in which the elastic degrees of freedom seem to play the essential role, giving rise to a domain pattern resembling that of martensitic phase transitions. A weak canted ferroelectricity turns out switchable by an electric field.

An organic approach for nanostructured multiferroics

Multiferroics are materials that simultaneously exhibit more than one ferroic order parameters, such as ferroelectricity, ferroelasticity and ferromagnetism. Recently, multiferroicity has received a significant revival of interest due to the colossal magnetoelectric coupling effect for the development of nano-ferronics. In this mini-review, we focus on a recent study of ferroelectricity, magnetism and magnetoelectric coupling within the newly discovered organic charge-transfer complexes. A systemic understanding of the origin of organic ferroelectricity and magnetism is provided. Furthermore, based on the recent mechanism of the magnetoelectric coupling effect: spin-ordering-induced electric polarization and ferroelectricity-induced spin alignment, we further present the recent progress in organic charge-transfer multiferroics and metal-organic framework multiferroics. The coexistence of polarization and magnetism at room temperature of organic charge-transfer complexes will be critical for the development of all-organic multiferroics.

Unprecedented transformation of [I−·I3−] to [I42−] polyiodides in the solid state: structures, phase transitions and characterization of dipyrazolium iodide triiodide

Dipyrazolium iodide triiodide, [C₃N₂H₅⁺]₂[I⁻·I₃⁻], has been synthesized and studied by means of X-ray diffraction, differential scanning calorimetry, dielectric measurements, and UV-Vis spectroscopy.

Molecular ferroelectrics: where electronics meet biology

In the last several years, we have witnessed significant advances in molecular ferroelectrics, with the ferroelectric properties of molecular crystals approaching those of barium titanate. In addition, ferroelectricity has been observed in biological systems, filling an important missing link in bioelectric phenomena. In this perspective, we will present short historical notes on ferroelectrics, followed by an overview of the fundamentals of ferroelectricity. The latest developments in molecular ferroelectrics and biological ferroelectricity will then be highlighted, and their implications and potential applications will be discussed. We close by noting molecular ferroelectric as an exciting frontier between electronics and biology, and a number of challenges ahead are also described.