Shedding light on molecular structure, spectroscopic, nonlinear optical and dielectric properties of bis(thiourea) silver(I) nitrate single crystal: A dual approach

Abstract

The current work is to spotlight the key structure-property features of a novel thiourea complex bis(thiourea) silver(I) nitrate (BTSN) for future applications in nonlinear optical devices through dual approach involving experimental and theoretical techniques. The synthesis and growth of good quality single crystals of a relatively new material BTSN have been done. The crystal structure, quantitative and qualitative, vibrational, optical and dielectric analysis of the grown single crystals was carried out. The optical transparency of the grown crystals is found to be more than 80% confirms its colorless nature and applications in optoelectronic devices. Further, the state-of-art computational methods have been applied to obtain the ground state molecular geometry at B3LYP/6-31G∗, MP2/6-31G∗ and M06/6-31G∗ levels of theory. Various key electro-optical properties (complementary to experimental results) such as IR, Raman, and polarizabilities have been determined at the same levels of theory. The static and dynamic polarizability and first hyperpolarizability both were calculated to comprehend the potential applications of BTSN in nonlinear optics. In addition to the above, numerous novel molecular level insights have been achieved in the form of total and partial density of states, HOMO-LUMO gap and molecular electrostatic potential map. The calculated values of static and frequency dependent dynamic first hyperpolarizability are found to be 8.46×10−30 and 2.30×10−30esu which are about 23 times and 13 times greater than those of prototype urea molecule, respectively, calculated at the same B3LYP/6-31G∗ level of theory. From the analyzed results it is clear that the titled compound possesses excellent electro-optic properties that make it a decent contestant for photonic devices.