Synthesis, growth and studies of undoped and sodium chloride-doped Zinc Tris-thiourea Sulphate (ZTS) single crystals

Single crystals of undoped (pure) and sodium chloride (NaCl)-doped Zinc Tris-thiourea Sulphate (ZTS) were grown from aqueous solutions by slow evaporation technique. Morphological alterations have been observed when NaCl is doped into ZTS crystals. Density of the grown crystals was measured by floatation method. The values of unit cell parameters from single crystal X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies show that pure and sodium chloride-doped ZTS crystals are in orthorhombic structure. Impurity concentration in the doped crystals was estimated by using an atomic absorption spectrometer. Second Harmonic Generation (SHG) test for the undoped and NaCl-doped ZTS crystals was performed by the powder technique of Kurtz and Perry using a pulsed Nd:YAG laser. Microhardness studies show that hardness number (Hv) increases with load for all the grown crystals of this work. From the values of work hardening coefficients, it is concluded that pure and sodium chloride-doped ZTS crystals belong to the category of soft materials. UV–vis–NIR spectra show that the grown crystals have wide optical transparency in the entire visible region. Birefringence studies of the grown samples have been performed by channelled spectrum method. The thermal stability of the materials is found to be increasing with the doping concentration of sodium chloride (NaCl) in the lattice of ZTS crystals.