Habitual growth and its influence on the properties of anilinium perchlorate (AP) single crystal for nonlinear optical device applications

Abstract

The habit of the semi organic nonlinear optical material anilinium perchlorate (AP) crystallized from different solvents, such as n-hexane, acetonitrile, toluene, acetone, ethanol, methanol and water were studied. Solubility of AP in above mentioned solvents at different temperatures was determined by gravimetric method. Crystals were grown by controlled solvent evaporation method. Solution with different solvents having different chemical nature and polarity yielded crystals with different habits, such as needle, platelet, bar, pyramidal cuboid, pyramidal cubic square and cuboid. The AP crystal shows predominant growth behaviour along its (2 0 $\bar{1}$) direction irrespective of the solvent used. The AP crystal grown from different solvents were found to crystallize in orthorhombic system with space group P2₁2₁2₁. Optical transmittance of the grown crystals was studied using UV–Vis–NIR spectrophotometer. The FWHM of the AP crystal was found to be 65.7 arc s by high resolution X-ray diffraction study. The effective nonlinearity of the AP crystal grown is 2.8 times greater compared to that of the standard KH₂PO₄ crystal. The laser damage threshold of the crystals grown from various solvents were assessed using 1064 nm ND:YAG laser radiation. The relative SHG efficiency of AP is found to increase with the quality of the crystal.