Influence of MgSO4 doping on the properties of zinc tris–thiourea sulphate (ZTS) single crystals

• The influence of MgSO4 doping on the properties of ZTS single crystals grown at room temperature.
• Thermal stability of the crystals increased with incorporation of Mg atom.
• Energy band gap was estimated from UV–vis spectra.
• ZTS is a potential material for frequency conversion.
• Both pure and doped ZTS crystals are belonging to category of typical insulating materials.

The influence of MgSO4 doping on the properties of zinc tris–thiourea sulphate single crystals grown at room temperature by slow evaporation solution growth technique was studied. Powder XRD analysis confirmed the orthorhombic crystal structure with noncentrosymmetric space group Pca21. The mechanical properties of the grown crystals were analysed by Vicker’s microhardness method. Functional groups present in the materials were identified by FTIR spectral analysis in the range between 4000 and 400 cm−1. The UV–Vis spectrum indicates that the UV cut-off wavelength of the crystals has less than 297 nm. The thermal stability of the grown crystals was determined with the aid of thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Second order nonlinear optical behaviour of the grown crystals have been confirmed by Kurtz powder second harmonic generation (SHG) test.