A novel bromo-substituted thiophene based centrosymmetric crystals: Thermal, mechanical, and third order NLO properties for the optical limiting applications

Abstract

A thiophene based bromo substituted novel chalcone derivative (E) -3-(4-bromophenyl)-1-(thiophen -2yl) prop-2-en-1-one (2AT4B) is synthesized and crystals are grown using solution slow evaporation method at ambient temperature. The single crystal XRD analysis is accomplished to confirm the three dimensional structure of the grown crystals and 2AT4B crystallizes with orthorhombic crystal system under centrosymmetric space group Pbca with the lattice parameters a = 6.0073(6) Å, b = 13.9765(14) Å, c = 28.1(3) Å, α=β=γ=900 and V = 2359.3(4) Å3. The functional groups and material purity is confirmed by FT-IR, proton NMR, and carbon NMR techniques. The crystal is subjected to mechanical and thermal analysis using vicker's microhardness test, differential scanning calorimetric, and thermogravimetric measurements and is thermally stable up to 134.04 °C. The synthesized molecule was characterized by UV–Vis–NIR spectrometer. The photoluminescence spectrum reveals violet light emission property 2AT4B crystal. In the visible region, 2AT4B crystal processes extensive optical transmission. In a continuous wave mode, the third-order NLO parameters are measured with Z-Scan technique. The open aperture data was used to study the optical limiting behaviour of chalcone crystal. Nonlinear optical studies show that the 2AT4B crystal is a promising source for applications in photonic and optical power limiting devices.