posted on 2023-08-23, 18:05authored byNavkiran Juneja, Daniel K. Unruh, Kristin M. Hutchins
Thermal
expansion (TE) behavior in solid-state materials is influenced
by both molecular and supramolecular structure. For solid-state materials
assembled through covalent bonds, such as carbon allotropes, solids
with higher dimensionality (i.e., diamond) exhibit less TE than solids
with lower dimensionality (e.g., fullerene, graphite). Thus, as the
dimensionality of the solid increases, the TE decreases. However,
an analogous and systematic variation of the dimensionality in solid-state
materials assembled through noncovalent bonds with a correlation to
TE has not been studied. Here, we designed a series of solids based
on dimensional hierarchy to afford materials with zero-dimensional
(0D), 1D, and 2D hydrogen-bonded structures. The 2D materials are
structural analogues of graphite and covalent-organic frameworks,
and we demonstrate that these 2D solids exhibit unique biaxial zero
TE with anisotropic and colossal TE along the π-stacked direction
(α ∼ 200 MK–1). The overall behavior
in the 2D hydrogen-bonded solids is similar to 2D covalent-bonded
solids; however, the coefficient of TE along the π-stacked direction
for these hydrogen-bonded solids is an order of magnitude higher than
in 2D graphite or phosphorus allotropes. The hierarchal materials
design strategy and correlation to TE properties described herein
can be broadly applied to the design and synthesis of new solid-state
materials sustained by covalent or noncovalent bonds with control
over solid-state behaviors.