Studies on synthesis, growth, structural, thermal, linear and nonlinear optical properties of organic picolinium maleate single crystals

► Picolinium maleate, a novel NLO crystal was grown by slow evaporation method. ► Picolinium maleate (PM) crystallizes in monoclinic system with space group P21/c. ► TGA/DTA thermal studies reveal that PM crystal thermally stable up to 115 °C. ► Laser damage threshold value of PM was found to be 4.3 GW/cm2 using Nd:YAG laser. ► SHG efficiency of PM crystal was found to be 0.4 times of KDP reference crystal.