Design and growth of novel organic molecular Quinoline 4-nitrophenol (QNP) single crystals: For Nonlinear optical (NLO) applications

Abstract

New efficient nonlinear optical (NLO) organic single crystals of quinoline 4-nitrophenol (QNP) were grown by slow evaporation solution technique (SEST) at room temperature using methanol as solvent. Primarily, the three dimensional (3D) intensity data of grown QNP crystal were collected by the single crystal X-ray diffraction (SXRD). The crystal structure was solved by the direct method using SHELXS and refined using SHELXL programs. The Hirshfeld surfaces have been investigated to define theoretical electron density (clouds) boundary surfaces for the QNP molecule and this is more useful for analyzing the intermolecular interactions of the molecular system. The crystalline planes and phase purity were analyzed by powder XRD (PXRD) measurement. Chemical environment of the present molecule and the position of carbon (C) and hydrogen (H) were analyzed by 13C and 1H NMR spectrum. Various functional groups of the QNP crystal were confirmed by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectral analysis. The optical quality and related optical parameters were analyzed by UV–Vis NIR measurement. The grown crystal has good optical transparency in the visible and near IR regions. The thermal stablity of the QNP single crystal has been investigated by thermogravimetric and differential thermal analysis (TG-DTA). The laser damage threshold (LDT) energy has been measured using an Nd: YAG laser. The nonlinear refractive index (n2), absorption coefficient (β) and third-order nonlinear susceptibility (χ(3)) were studied using Z-scan technique with a continuous wave (CW) laser of 632.8 nm.