Crystals, traditionally seen as symbols of rigidity and brittleness, are now revealing a remarkable hidden characteristic: the ability to heal themselves. Leading this breakthrough is Dr. Panče Naumov and his research team at New York University and New York University Abu Dhabi. Since the mid-2010s, they have been transforming the field of materials science by uncovering and explaining the self-repairing behavior of molecular crystals. Their work offers profound insights into the internal dynamics of solid materials and paves the way for a new generation of durable, sustainable, and adaptable technologies. This groundbreaking research was featured in a detailed article published in Nature Reviews Chemistry on April 14, 2025, marking a major advance in the study of responsive materials.

A Conceptual Leap: Crystals as Soft Matter

The renewed interest in self-healing molecular crystals, which began to gain momentum around 2016, was driven by a pivotal shift in thinking. ″Around 2015, we realized that organic crystals could be classified as soft materials, similar to plastics and rubber, but with the added feature of structural order, which makes them quite unique,″…