Engineering Crystal Properties through Solid Solutions

The control of structures and properties in crystalline materials has many returns that justify the\nincreasing efforts in this direction. Traditionally, crystal engineering focused on the rational design of single\ncomponent molecular crystals or supramolecular compounds (i.e., cocrystals). More recently, reports on crystalline\nsolid solutions have become common in crystal engineering research. Crystalline solid solutions are characterized by\na structural disorder that enables the variation of stoichiometry in continuum. Often such variation corresponds to a\nvariation of structural and physicochemical properties, and offers an opportunity for the materials’ fine-tuning. In\nsome cases, though, new and unexpected properties emerge. As illustrated here, both behaviors make solid solutions\nparticularly relevant to the scope of crystal engineering.