Unidirectional growth of large size urea doped l-cysteine hydrochloride monohydrate NLO organic crystal and investigations of its crystalline and optical properties

•Unidirectional growth method yields large NLO crystal of Urea l-Cysteine HCl H2O.•Crystalline & optical perfection measured using HRXRD and interferometry.•Functional groups and transmittance found using FTIR and UV–vis-NIR spectroscopy.•NLO device potential of the crystal investigated by measuring SHG efficiency.

Organic crystals of urea doped l-cysteine hydrochloride monohydrate have been grown by unidirectional solution growth technique. The crystal grown by this technique has high growth rate as compared to the crystals grown using conventional slow cooling method. This method is ideally suited to grow crystals along a specific direction. The growth process was monitored at regular intervals of time in a time-lapsed manner to estimate the growth rate and also monitor its quality visually. The grown crystal was subjected to different characterizations in order to confirm the phase of the grown crystal, its crystalline perfection and optical properties. The X-ray diffraction confirmed the phase of the crystal. The rocking curve recorded using high resolution X-ray diffraction (HRXRD) technique reveals that the crystal grown using conventional slow cooling method has internal gain boundaries whereas that grown by unidirectional technique has high degree of crystalline perfection. The bonding environment present in the crystal was characterized by FTIR spectroscopy where vibrational frequencies of the different functional groups present were identified. The optical quality of the crystal was characterized using UV–vis-NIR spectrophotometer and Mach–Zehnder interferometer. The nonlinear optical response of the crystal was measured using Kurtz–Perry method and found to be 1.4 times that of a KDP crystal.

Graphical abstractFigure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide