Growth and characterization of γ-glycine single crystals from cadmium chloride for optoelectronic applications

Single crystal of γ-glycine, an organic nonlinear optical material has been grown by solvent evaporation technique from the aqueous solutions of glycine and cadmium chloride at ambient temperature for the first time. The γ-phase of glycine is confirmed by single crystal X-ray diffraction. The crystal is in hexagonal system with non-centrosymmetric space group P31. The FTIR spectral analysis shows the functional group vibration of γ-phase glycine. UV–vis–NIR analysis reveals that the crystal has good optical transparency window in the entire visible and IR region. UV cut-off wavelength is at ∼350 nm. Thermal analysis shows the thermal stability, phase transition of the grown crystals and its melting point. Second harmonic generation efficiency of the crystal is about 1.7 times that of KDP.