Premium
Morphology and Nanomechanics of Conducting Plastic Crystals
Author(s) -
Volel Maritza,
Alarco PierreJean,
AbuLebdeh Yaser,
Armand Michel
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
chemphyschem
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.016
H-Index - 140
eISSN - 1439-7641
pISSN - 1439-4235
DOI - 10.1002/cphc.200400070
Subject(s) - materials science , crystallography , morphology (biology) , nanomechanics , phase transition , brittleness , viscoplasticity , lattice (music) , composite material , atomic force microscopy , ring (chemistry) , crystal (programming language) , condensed matter physics , chemical physics , nanotechnology , chemistry , thermodynamics , organic chemistry , physics , constitutive equation , genetics , finite element method , acoustics , biology , computer science , programming language
We present a temperature‐controlled scanning probe microscopy characterisation of morphology and mechanical behaviour of conducting N , N ′‐cyclized pyrazolium salts. These salts are plastic crystals belonging to the pyrazolium trifluoromethanesulfonimide family. Going from a five‐membered to a seven‐membered ring, and adding a methyl group in α to either the five‐membered or six‐membered rings, allows modulation of the temperature of the phase transitions. Before and after the transitions, the materials' Young moduli, hardnesses and surface roughnesses change. We attribute these macroscopic modifications to specific states: brittle, elastoplastic and viscoplastic, corresponding to variations in the extent of the dislocations present in the crystal lattice planes of the compounds.