Sodium sulfanilate dihydrate (SSDH) single crystals grown by conventional slow evaporation and Sankaranarayanan–Ramasamy (SR) method and its comparative characterization analysis

Abstract

A transparent uniaxial sodium sulfanilate dihydrate (SSDH) single crystal having dimension of 30mm diameter and 100mm length was grown by Sankaranarayanan–Ramasamy (SR) method with a growth rate of 1mm per day. Using an identical solution the conventional crystal grown to a dimension of 12mm×20mm×5mm was obtained over a period of 20 days. The crystal structure has been confirmed by single crystal X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurement. The crystalline perfection of sodium sulfanilate dihydrate crystals grown by slow evaporation solution technique (SEST) and SR method were characterized using chemical etching, laser damage threshold, Vickers microhardness, UV–vis NIR, birefringence and dielectric analysis. The above study indicates that the crystal quality of the Sankaranarayanan–Ramasamy (SR) method grown sodium sulfanilate dihydrate is good compared to conventional solution method grown SSDH crystal. The growth features of inclusions, low angle grain boundaries, twins and micro-cracks have been observed in conventional method grown SSDH crystals. The dielectric tensor components for unidirectional method grown sodium sulfanilate dihydrate single crystal were evaluated as a function of temperature at 100Hz frequency.