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Many long-lasting insecticidal bed nets for protection against disease vectors consist of poly(ethylene) fibers in which insecticide is incorporated during manufacture. Insecticide molecules diffuse from within the supersaturated polymers to surfaces where they become bioavailable to insects and often crystallize, a process known as blooming. Recent studies revealed that contact insecticides can be highly polymorphic. Moreover, insecticidal activity is polymorph-dependent, with forms having a higher crystal free energy yielding faster insect knockdown and mortality. Consequently, the crystallographic characterization of insecticide crystals that form on fibers is critical to understanding net function and improving net performance. Structural characterization of insecticide crystals on bed net fiber surfaces, let alone their polymorphs, has been elusive owing to the minute size of the crystals, however. Using the highly polymorphous compound ROY (5-methyl-2-[(2-nitrophenyl)-amino]thiophene-3-carbonitrile) as a proxy for insecticide crystallization, we investigated blooming and crystal formation on the surface of extruded poly(ethylene) fibers containing ROY. The blooming rates, tracked from the time of extrusion, were determined by UV–vis spectroscopy after successive washes. Six crystalline polymorphs (of the 13 known) were observed on poly(ethylene) fiber surfaces, and they were identified and characterized by Raman microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and 3D electron diffraction. These observations reveal that the crystallization and phase behavior of polymorphs forming on poly(ethylene) fibers is complex and dynamic. The characterization of blooming and microcrystals underscores the importance of bed net crystallography for the optimization of bed net performance.

Tetrathiafulvalene (TTF) crystals grown from the melt are organized as spherulites in which helicoidal fibrils growing radially from the nucleation center twist in concert with one another. Alternating bright and dark concentric bands are apparent when films are viewed between crossed polarizers, indicating an alternating pattern of crystallographic faces exposed at the film surface. Band-dependent reorganization of the TTF crystals was observed during exposure to methanol vapor. Crystalline growth appears on bright bands at the expense of the dark bands. After a 24 h period of exposure to methanol vapor, the original spherulites were completely restructured, and the films comprise isolated, concentric circles of crystallites whose orientations are determined by the initial TTF crystal fibril orientation. While the surface of these outgrowths appears faceted and smooth, cross-sectional SEM images revealed a semiporous inner structure, suggesting solvent-vapor-induced recrystallization. Collectively, these results show that crystal twisting can be used to rhythmically redistribute material. Crystal twisting is a common and often controllable phenomenon independent of molecular or crystal structure and therefore offers a generalizable path to spontaneous pattern formation in a wide range of materials.

Many crystals grow as banded spherulites from the melt with an optical rhythm indicative of helicoidal twisting. In this work, 23 of 41 charge transfer complexes (CTCs) are grown with twisted morphologies. As a group, CTCs more commonly twist (56%) than molecular crystals arbitrarily chosen in our previous research (31%). To analyze the effect of twisting on charge transport, three tetracyanoethylene-based CTCs with phenanthrene (PhT), pyrene (PyT), and perylene are characterized. PhT and PyT are subject to mobility measurements using organic field-effect transistors. The mobilities for twisted crystals are around three times higher than for crystals with no ostensible optical modulation, which are effectively straight. The differences in mobilities of straight and twisted crystals are considered computationally based on density functional theory. Straight crystal models built from crystallographic information files are calculated and present anisotropic hole and electron transport. For twisted crystal models, adjacent layers in the supercell are rotated by 0.01° around experimentally determined twisting directions. The modified transfer integrals lead to a slight increase (up to 25%) in the calculated mobilities of twisted crystals. Comparisons of model calculations on individual fibrils and measurements of ensembles of fibrils indicate that interfaces between single crystals are likely consequential.

A previously unreported polymorph of 5,11-bis(triisopropylsilylethynyl)anthradithiophene (TIPS ADT), Form II, crystallizes from melt-processed TIPS ADT films blended with 16 ± 1 wt % medium density polyethylene (PE). TIPS ADT/PE blends that initially are crystallized from the melt produce twisted TIPS ADT crystals of a metastable polymorph (Form IV, space group P1̅) with a brickwork packing motif distinct from the slipstack packing by solution-processed TIPS ADT crystals (Form I, space group P21/c) at room temperature. When these films were cooled to room temperature and subsequently annealed at 100 °C, near a PE melting temperature of 110 °C, Form II crystals nucleated and grew while consuming Form IV. The growth rate and orientations of Form II crystals were predetermined by the twisting pitch and growth direction of the original banded spherulites in the melt-processed films of the blends. Notably, the Form IV → II transition was not observed during thermal annealing of neat TIPS ADT films without PE. The presence of the mobile PE phase during thermal annealing of TIPS ADT/PE blend films increases the diffusion rate of TIPS ADT molecules, and the rate of nucleation of Form II. Form IV crystals are more conductive but less emissive compared to Form II crystals.

Helicoidal crystallites in rhythmically banded spherulites manifest spectacular optical patterns in small molecules and polymers. It is shown that concentric optical bands indicating crystallographic orientations typically lose coherence (in-phase twisting) with growth from the center of nucleation. Here, coherence is shown to increase as the twist period decreases for seven molecular crystals grown from the melt. This dependence was correlated to crystallite fiber thickness and length, as well as crystallite branching frequency, a parameter that was extracted from scanning electron micrographs, and supported by numerical simulations. Hole mobilities for 2,5-didodecyl-3,6-di(thiophen-2-yl)pyrrolo[3,4-c]pyrrole-1,4(2H,5H)-dione (DPP-C12) measured by using organic field-effect transistors demonstrated that more incoherent boundaries between optical bands in spherulites lead to higher charge transport for films with the same twist period. This was rationalized by combining our growth model with electrodynamic simulations. This work illustrates the emergence of complexity in crystallization processes (spherulite formation) that arises in the extra variable of helicoidal radial twisting. The details of the patterns analyzed here link the added complexity in crystal growth to the electronic and optical properties of the thin films.

The crystallization of a series of triisopropylsilylethynyl (TIPS)-derivatized acene-based organic semiconductors drop cast from solution onto substrates was investigated as a function of the size of their conjugated cores. When drop cast onto a substrate, the molecules in TIPS-pentacene crystals adopt a “horizontal” orientation, with the long axis of the pentacene core parallel to the substrate surface. For crystals comprising molecules with dibenzopyrene, anthanthrene, and pyranthrene cores, two-dimensional X-ray diffraction patterns revealed the existence of a second population of crystals adopting a “vertical” molecular orientation with the long axis of the acene core perpendicular to the substrate surface. The ratio of the population of TIPS-pyranthrene crystals with molecules adopting horizontal versus vertical orientations was controlled by varying the surface energy of the underlying substrate. These crystals displayed orientation-dependent linear birefringence and linear dichroism, as observed by differential polarizing optical microscopy. Conductive atomic force microscopy (C-AFM) revealed a 42-fold improvement in out-of-plane hole mobility through crystals adopting the vertical molecular orientation compared to those adopting the horizontal molecular orientation.

We have synthesized a new class of highly efficient nonlinear optical (NLO) chromophores based on the novel tricyanopyrroline (TCP) electron acceptor. Molecular linear and nonlinear optical properties of the prototypical chromophores were measured and calculated to understand structure−property relationships. One such chromophore showed molecular first hyperpolarizability (β) of (8700 ± 702) × 10-30 esu at excitation wavelengths of 1.9 μm, and another showed macroscopic electro-optic (EO) coefficients (r33) of 51 pm/V at 1.55 μm with 20 wt % chromophore loading when poled with 65 V/μm in amorphous polycarbonate film. Synthetic strategies for extending the utility of the acceptor and chromophores are discussed.

The common tetragonal form of KH2PO4 undergoes two high-temperature transformations that have been studied extensively by vibrational spectroscopy. But, because these changes are strikingly heterogeneous, the previously reported spectra, averages over polycrystalline and single crystal domains, have remained ill-defined. We recently identified the crystalline domains by polarization microscopy, physically isolated them, and determined their structures by X-ray diffraction (Subramony, J. A.; Lovell, S.; Kahr, B. Chem. Mater. 1998, 10, 2053−2057). Here, using micro-Raman spectroscopy, we have deconvoluted the signals of the polycrystalline and crystalline domains, showing that the inescapable pyro- and metaphosphate dehydration products are localized in the polycrystalline material. Those debating whether the transformations are genuine structural phase transformations or are merely dehydration reactions can all be vindicated in certain parts of any one sample.

Triphenylmethyl iodide (C19H15I) crystallizes in the monoclinic system:  a = 15.919(6) Å, b = 10.826(6) Å, c = 19.397(11) Å, β = 114.86(4)°, space group C2/c, Z = 8. In the structure, heterochiral propeller molecules are interdigitated. This arrangement, coupled with earlier reports of the thermal instability of triphenylmethyl iodide, suggested a convenient, topochemically controlled, solid-state synthesis of the elusive hydrocarbon hexaphenylethane. Crystals of the ¹³Cmethyl-labeled triphenylmethyl iodide were heated to 100 °C in a rotor spinning at the magic angle within an NMR spectrometer. Spectral changes and accompanying analyses by plasma desorption mass spectrometry, calorimetry, and ESR spectroscopy reveal that the major product in the decomposition is triphenylmethane, produced by hydrogen atom abstractions from neighboring triphenylmethyl radicals, that subsequently oligomerize. These data provide a new view of the thermal stability of triphenylmethyl iodide in the solid state and an old view of the accessibility of hexaphenylethane.