Synthesis, growth, structural, optical and thermal properties of a new semiorganic nonlinear optical guanidinium perchlorate single crystal

The guanidinium perchlorate crystals were grown from aqueous solution by low temperature solution growth technique. The cell parameter values were found out using X-ray diffraction analysis. The presence of chlorine in guanidine perchlorate was estimated qualitatively by FTIR analysis. The optical transmittance window and the lower cutoff wavelength have been identified by UV–vis–NIR spectral analysis. Second harmonic generation efficiency is found to be 1.5 times that of KDP. Thermal stability of the crystal was investigated using thermo-gravimetric analysis. Microhardness studies were carried out using Leitz–Wetzler hardness tester at room temperature.

• Guanidinium ion can form a broad family of hydrogen-bonded crystals that make it an obvious molecular candidate as NLO material.
• UV transparency cutoff occurs at 250 nm, which is good enough for blue-violet light photonic applications.
• SHG efficiency is equal to 1.5 times that of standard KDP crystal.
• GPCl crystal has high thermal and mechanical stability.