Effects of semi-organic additives on the solubility, growth, optical, thermal, mechanical, dielectric and NLO behaviors of ADP crystals for optoelectronic applications

Effects of the addition of semi-organic NLO materials potassium hydrogen malate monohydrate (PHMM) and sodium acid phthalate (NaAP) on the growth and various properties of ammonium dihydrogen phosphate (ADP) single crystal grown by the slow cooling method have been studied. The metastable zonewidth of pure and doped ADP were determined and compared. Nucleation studies show that metastable zonewidth and growth rate of ADP are enhanced by the dopants PHMM and NaAP. The grown crystals were subjected to Powder XRD, FT-IR, UV–vis, TG/DSC, microhardness and dielectric studies. The grown crystal has good optical transparency in the entire visible region, which is an essential requirement for a nonlinear crystal. Dielectric measurements reveal that doped ADP crystals have low dielectric loss and higher dielectric constant than pure ADP. The relative SHG efficiency measurements revealed that the dopant has enhanced the efficiency. Presence of dopant was confirmed by energy-dispersive spectrometry.