Comparative study of pure and alkaline earth metallic doped cadmium mercury thiocyanate single crystals—Gel technique

Growth aspects of Ba and Ca doped cadmium mercury thiocyanate (CMTC) single crystals from silica gel by the process of diffusion are discussed. The incorporation of dopants in the crystal has been confirmed by inductively coupled plasma (ICP) analysis. Single crystal X-ray diffraction studies reveal the structures of the doped crystals to be tetragonal implying that the incorporation of the dopants has not changed the structure of the parent crystal. The diffraction planes were identified and indexed by powder diffraction analysis. High-resolution X-ray diffraction analyses were carried out to investigate the crystalline perfection of the grown crystals. The grown crystals were characterized by Fourier transform infrared and transmission spectral analyses. Vickers microhardness studies on the grown crystals reveal that they belong to soft material category. Employing powder Kurtz method, their second harmonic generation efficiencies were measured in comparison with urea.