Synthesis, growth and characterisation of a semiorganic nonlinear optical material: l-threonine cadmium chloride single crystals

Abstract

A semiorganic nonlinear optical single crystal was grown from aqueous solution by a slow evaporation method at room temperature. The characterisation of the crystal was made using single crystal and powder X-ray diffraction analysis and it was found to be the l-threonine cadmium chloride (LTCC) crystallised in an orthorhombic crystal system with noncentro symmetric space group. The UV–Vis spectroscopic study reveals that the crystal has good optical transparency and the lower cut off wavelength was found to be 332nm. The presence of functional groups was identified by FTIR spectra. The percentage of carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen was analysed by elemental analysis. The micro hardness was tested by using a Vicker’s micro hardness tester. The nonlinear optical property was confirmed by the Kurtz Perry powder technique and it was found to be 0.7 times higher than the pure potassium dihydrogen phosphate (KDP) crystal.