Structure–property relation and third order nonlinear optical absorption study of a new organic crystal: 1-(3,4-Dimethoxyphenyl)-3-(2-fluorophenyl) prop-2-en-1-one

• Acetone was used to grow the single crystals 2FRDP.
• The slow evaporation technique at constant temperature method was employed.
• Carbonyl (CO) stretching vibrations was observed at 1653 cm−1.
• From the linear optical data it is possible to calculate energy gap.

A new third order centrosymmetric organic crystal: 1-(3,4-dimethoxyphenyl)-3-(2-fluorophenyl) prop-2-en-1-one (2FRDP) belonging to chalcone family has been synthesized and characterized by FTIR, CHNS and UV–Visible spectroscopy. Single crystal X-ray diffraction reveals that compound crystallizes in C2/c monoclinic space group. The X-ray powder diffraction of the crystal was carried out and hkl values are indexed for the diffraction pattern using mercury software. UV–Visible spectrum showed that 2FRDP is transparent in the entire visible region. The thermal stability of the grown 2FRDP crystal was analyzed by thermo gravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The dielectric study revealed that, 2FRDP possesses low dielectric constant and dielectric loss at high frequency. The third order nonlinear optical absorption and the optical limiting experiment were carried out using open aperture Z-scan data using an Nd:YAG laser operating at the wavelength 532 nm.