Thermal Expansion in Organic Crystals

Abstract

Though a large number of thermal expansion studies have been reported on inorganic systems, a considerably large number on metal–organic-based systems, but those on purely organic systems are too few. Moreover, owing to the complexity of the crystal structure of the organic systems, their thermal expansion behaviors are poorly understood. This review focuses on some interesting thermal expansion studies conducted on purely organic crystals and also on some important structure–property relationships of thermal expansion of organic crystals with intermolecular interactions, melting point of systems, guest molecules in inclusion compounds, and hydrogen bond dimensionality in the crystal structures. Most studies discussed here have been reported in recent years.