Studies on amino acid picrates: Crystal growth, structure and characterization of a new nonlinear optical material l-isoleucinium picrate

A series of l-amino acids, isoleucine, valine, glutamine, methionine, arginine, cystine and aspargine are employed to form picrates with picric acid (1:1). A comparison of cell parameters reveals that expected picrates are formed only in the case of l-valine and l-isoleucine. l-Isoleucinium picrate (LIP), a new nonlinear optical material was grown from aqueous medium by the slow evaporation of equimolar mixture of l-isoleucine and picric acid. The structure of the grown crystal as determined by single crystal XRD diffraction analysis reveals that it belongs to the monoclinic system with space group P21 and the cell parameter values are, a = 9.970(3) Å; b = 6.425(2) Å; c = 12.871(4) Å; β = 109.54(3)°; V = 770.0(4) Å3; Z = 2. The presence of functional groups in the LIP is confirmed by FT-IR vibrational patterns and the good crystallinity indicated by powder X-ray diffraction method. The relative second harmonic generation (SHG) efficiency measurements reveal that the LIP is a highly efficient nonlinear optical (NLO) material having an activity 16 times as that of the reference material potassium dihydrogen phosphate. The optical transparency has been studied using UV–vis spectrophotometer and the absorption is minimum in the visible region. Thermogravimetric and differential thermal analyses reveal the purity of the sample and no decomposition is observed up to the melting point.