A folded π-system with supramolecularly oriented dipoles: single-component piezoelectric relaxor with NLO activity.

Organic molecules with an active dipole moment have a natural propensity to align in an antiparallel fashion in the solid state, resulting in zero macroscopic polarization. This primary limitation makes the material unresponsive to switching with electric fields, mechanical forces, and to intense laser light. A single-component organic material that bestows macroscopic dipole-driven electro-mechanical and optical functions, , piezoelectric, ferroelectric and nonlinear optical (NLO) activity, is unprecedented due to the design challenges imparted by crystal symmetry and dipole orientations.

A highly contorted push-pull naphthalenediimide dimer and evidence of intramolecular singlet exciton fission.

Singlet fission is a process by which two molecular triplet excitons are generated subsequent to the absorption of one photon. Molecules that enable singlet fission have triplet state energy at least half of the bright singlet state energy. This stringent energy criteria have challenged chemists to device new molecular and supramolecular design principles to modulate the singlet-triplet energy gap and build singlet fission systems from a wide range of organic chromophores.