Growth and characterization of pure and doped KHP NLO single crystals

•0.5% Doped l-lysine KHP crystals have high transparency.•Similarly low dopant of KHP has high SHG efficiency.•Functional groups from FTIR reveals the dopand in the crystal.•Only lower dopant are superior when compared to pure and high dopants of l-lysine.•This proves dopants of KHP crystals can be widely used for optical applications.

Single crystals of Potassium Hydrogen Phthalate doped with amino acid l-lysine were grown successfully by slow evaporation method. The concentration of dopant in the mother solution was 0.5 mol%, 1 mol% and 2 mol%. There is a drastic change in the morphology due to variation in doping rates which is also reflected in the X-ray diffraction data. The Fourier Transform infrared spectroscopy study confirms the incorporation of l-lysine into Potassium Hydrogen Phthalate crystal. The thermal study indicates the dissociating nature of the crystal. The nonlinear optical property of the grown crystal has been confirmed by Kurtz-powder second harmonic generation test. The dopant of 0.5 mol% and 1 mol% shows higher second harmonic generation result than pure Potassium Hydrogen Phthalate. Results are discussed.

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