Autonomous self-repair in piezoelectric molecular crystals

Autonomous self-healing The ability to autonomously restore shape or self-heal are useful properties that have been incorporated into a range of materials, including metals and polymers. Bhunia et al. found that both of these abilities could be achieved in piezoelectric molecular crystals, specifically bipyrazole organic crystals. When the crystals are fractured, they develop charged surfaces that attract each other, drawing the two faces together to enable self-repair as long as they remain within a critical distance of each other. The effect can also be seen in other noncentrosymmetric piezoelectric crystals. Science , abg3886, this issue p. 321