SELF HEALING MATERIAL

PIEZOELECTRIC MOLECULAR CRYSTALS

  • Piezoelectric crystals are the type of materials that can generate electricity when the application undergoes mechanical stress.
  • These are perfect for applications that require perfect accuracy in their work, for example, movement of the motor in a machine.
  • These crystals can repair their damage by converting electric signals generated by mechanical stress into mechanical energy, have autonomously self-healing power.

WHAT ARE PIEZOELECTRIC MOLECULAR CRYSTALS?

  • The piezoelectric molecular crystals developed are known as bipyrazole organic crystals.
  • These materials will soon make it possible for damaged electric components such as spacecraft etc. to restore by themselves, where humans are unable to restore that.

WHO DEVELOPED THIS?

  • Researchers from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Kolkata, collaborated with IIT Kharagpur and developed piezoelectric molecular crystals that can repair their own mechanical damages with electrical charges generated by the mechanical impact, by converting electric signals into mechanical energy.
  • This research was supported by the Department of Science and Technology, published in the journal Science recently.
  • The research team was led by Prof. C Malla Reddy, a recipient of the Swarna Jayanti Fellowship (2015).

HOW DO PIEZOELECTRIC MOLECULAR CRYSTALS WORK?

  • Prof. Nirmalya Ghosh of IISER Kolkata integrated a custom-designed polarized microscopic system to study and amplify the piezoelectric molecular crystals.
  • After any mechanical stress, these crystals recombine and autonomously self-heal in milliseconds with crystallographic precision without any outer control.
  • These crystals do have a unique property of generating electrical signals at the damaged area by broken pieces which attract each other leading to an autonomous self-healing.

WHAT ARE THE APPLICATIONS OF PIEZOELECTRIC MOLECULAR CRYSTALS?

• These crystals will find application in micro-robotics, actuators, high accuracy mechanical sensors, and high-end microchips and smart gadgets.

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