Hysteresislike Behavior in Meta-Nitroaniline Crystals

Abstract

In this paper we report, for the first time, an experimentally observed hysteresislike variation of lattice parameter of the organic crystal 2-nitro aniline (mNA) under the influence of an externally applied dc electric field. Calculations have been made to determine whether the main features of the hysteresislike behavior can be explained in terms of the geometrical distortions of isolated mNA molecules or are dominated by molecular interactions. The results show that the main features of the nonlinearity can be explained in terms of changes in the acceptor-donor properties of isolated mNA molecules.