Observation of Rapid Desolvation of Hexafluorobenzene Involving Single-Crystal-to-Single-Crystal Phase Transition in a Nonporous Organic Host

We report an unusual occurrence of an extremely fast single crystal-to-single-crystal phase transition induced by rapid desolvation of hexafluorobenzene at room temperature mediated by a subtle interplay of pi-pi stacking interactions in N-(3-ethynylphenyl)-4-fluorobenzamide. The nature of the host guest stacking interaction'has been explored in terms of interaction energy, electrostatic complementarity, and topological analysis with the inputs from reduced density gradient-noncovalent interactions fingerprint descriptor. Furthermore, the compound also exists in two other nonsolvated polymorphic forms.