Negative linear compressibility

Abstract

While all materials reduce their intrinsic volume under hydrostatic (uniform) compression, a select few actually expand along one or more directions during this process of densification. As rare as it is counterintuitive, such "negative compressibility" behaviour has application in the design of pressure sensors, artificial muscles and actuators. The recent discovery of surprisingly strong and persistent negative compressibility effects in a variety of new families of materials has ignited the field. Here we review the phenomenology of negative compressibility in this context of materials diversity, placing particular emphasis on the common structural motifs that recur amongst known examples. Our goal is to present a mechanistic understanding of negative compressibility that will help inform a clear strategy for future materials design.

Silver Oxalate: Mechanical Properties and Extreme Negative Mechanical Phenomena

“…High-quality computational setups, comprising large plane wave basis sets and dense k-point meshes, were employed in order to obtain realistic descriptions of their mechanical behavior. [14][15][16][17][18][19] The materials showing these phenomena have found an enormous range of applications because they have improved properties resulting specifically from their mechanical behavior. [14][15][16][17][18][19] The materials showing these phenomena have found an enormous range of applications because they have improved properties resulting specifically from their mechanical behavior.…”

Uniaxial negative thermal expansion and metallophilicity in Cu3[Co(CN)6]

“…1. The same mechanism operates under application of hydrostatic pressure, such that volume compression actually results in linear expansion for a particular set of directions [17]-so-called negative linear compressibility (NLC) [25][26][27]. NTE and NLC are valuable material properties, exploitable in the design of a thermal composites used in optical devices and next-generation pressure sensors.…”

Compositional dependence of anomalous thermal expansion in perovskite-like ABX3formates

“…negative thermal expansion (NTE), 1,2 negative compressibility, [3][4][5] breathing transitions, 6,7 and amorphisation 8,9 ) has focussed attention within the field on establishing composition-property relationships. The hopeas in much of MOF science-is to develop design strategies that will allow the targeted synthesis of MOFs with specific and optimised physical properties.…”