Investigation of optical and electrical properties of l-Cystein doped zinc thiourea chloride (ZTC) crystal for nonlinear optical (NLO) applications

• The l-Cystein doped zinc thiourea chloride (ZTC) crystal grown using slow evaporation technique.
• The SHG efficiency found to 1.96 times that of pure ZTC.
• The crystal has high transparency in UV visible region.
• The lower dielectric characteristics indicate high optical quality of crystal.
• The thermal studies of the crystal are discussed.

The single crystal of l-Cystein doped zinc thiourea chloride (ZTC) has been grown by slow evaporation technique. The optical study revealed that the doped ZTC crystal has high transmission with lowest cut off wavelength of 306 nm. The optical band gap was found to be 4.2 eV. The transition band gaps were studied using the photoluminescence spectrum. The incorporation of l-Cystein in ZTC was estimated qualitatively by FT-IR analysis. The presence of dopant was confirmed by energy diffraction X-ray analysis (EDAX) analysis. The lower dielectric characteristics of doped ZTC crystal were scrutinized by dielectric measurements. The high thermal stability of grown crystal was ascertained by TG/DTA analysis. The Second harmonic generation (SHG) efficiency measured using Nd-YAG laser is 1.96 times that of pure ZTC.