Crystals of hexachlorobenzene easily break when pressed on the (100) face, but bend to 360° without disintegrating when stress is applied on the (001) face. In the latter case this extraordinary malleability arises from the segregation and sliding of layers of molecules in the crystal, a process in which halogen–halogen interactions are broken and reformed.
- Manas K. Panda
- Soumyajit Ghosh
- Panče Naumov
