Organic crystal structure prediction and its application to materials design

Abstract

In recent years, substantial progress has been made in the modeling of organic solids. Computer simulation has been increasingly shaping the area of new organic materials by design. It is possible to discover new organic crystals by computational structure prediction, based on the combination of powerful exploratory algorithms and accurate energy modeling. In this review, we begin with several key early concepts in describing crystal packing, and then introduce the recent state-of-the-art computational techniques for organic crystal structure prediction. Perspectives on the remaining technical challenges, functional materials screening and software development are also discussed in the end. It is reasonable to expect that, in the near future, accurate predictive computational modeling can be accomplished within a time frame that is appreciably shorter than that needed for the laboratory synthesis and characterization. Graphical abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.]