Growth and characterization of nonlinear optical l-arginine maleate dihydrate single crystals

Bulk single crystals of l-arginine maleate dihydrate (LAMD), an organic nonlinear optical material, have been grown from aqueous solution by slow cooling technique. Single crystals of size 48 × 33 × 7 mm3 were grown over a growth period of 3 weeks. Since LAMD has high solubility in water, the growth parameters have been optimized for the reproducible growth of good quality crystals. The cell parameters were estimated by powder X-ray diffraction analysis. FTIR analysis was used to confirm the presence of various functional groups in the grown crystal. Thermal behavior of the grown crystal was investigated by DTA and TGA. The mechanical property of the grown crystal has been studied using Vicker's microhardness tester. The etching studies have been carried out on the grown crystals. The powder technique of Kurtz and Perry confirms the NLO property of the grown crystal and the SHG efficiency of LAMD was found to be 1.4 times that of KDP crystal.