Presence of Short Intermolecular Contacts Screens for Kinetic Stability in Packing Polymorphs

Purdum, Geoffrey E.; Telesz, Nicholas G.; Jarolimek, Karol; Ryno, Sean M.; Gessner, Thomas; Davy, Nicholas C.; Petty, Anthony J.; Zhen, Yonggang; Shu, Ying; Facchetti, Antonio; Collis, Gavin E.; Hu, Wenping; Wu, Chao; Anthony, John E.; Weitz, R. Thomas; Risko, Chad und Loo, Yueh-Lin (2018): Presence of Short Intermolecular Contacts Screens for Kinetic Stability in Packing Polymorphs. In: Journal of the American Chemical Society, Bd. 140, Nr. 24: S. 7519-7525

Abstract

Polymorphism is pervasive in molecular solids. While computational predictions of the molecular polymorphic landscape have improved significantly, identifying which polymorphs are preferentially accessed and experimentally stable remains a challenge. We report a framework that correlates short intermolecular contacts with polymorphic stability. The presence of short contacts between neighboring molecules prevents structural rearrangement and stabilizes the packing arrangement, even when the stabilized polymorph is not enthalpically favored. In the absence of such intermolecular short contacts, the molecules have added degrees of freedom for structural rearrangement, and solid-solid polymorphic transformations occur readily. Starting with a series of core-halogenated naphthalene tetracarboxylic diimides, we establish this framework with the packing polymorphs of more than 20 compounds, ranging from molecular semiconductors to pharmaceutics and biological building blocks. This framework, widely applicable across molecular solids, can help refine computational predictions by identifying the polymorphs that are kinetically stable.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Physik
• Fakultätsübergreifende Einrichtungen: Center for NanoScience (CENS)
• Themengebiete: 500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik > 530 Physik ; 500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik > 500 Naturwissenschaften
• ISSN: 0002-7863
• Sprache: Englisch