Superplasticity in an organic crystal

Superplasticity, which enables processing on hard-to-work solids, has been recognized only in metallic solids. While metallic materials and plastics (polymer solids) essentially possess high plastic workability, functional crystalline solids present difficulties in molding. Organic crystals especially are fragile, in the common view, and they are far from the stage of materials development. From the viewpoint of practical application; however, organic crystals are especially attractive because they are composed of ubiquitous elements and often exhibit higher performance than metallic materials. Thus, finding superplastic deformation of organic crystals, especially in a single-crystal-to-single-crystal manner, will pave the way for their material applications. This study confirmed superplasticity in a crystal of a simple organic compound: N,N-dimethyl-4-nitroaniline. The crystal exhibits single-crystal-to-single-crystal superplastic deformation without heating. This finding of “organosuperplasticity” will contribute to the future design of functional solids that do not lose their crystalline quality in molding.