Growth and characterization of new semi-organic l-proline strontium chloride monohydrate single crystals

The present communication deals with the synthesis, single crystal growth and characterization of a new nonlinear optical material l-proline strontium chloride monohydrate (l-PSCM). Single crystals have been grown using the slow solvent evaporation technique. Single crystal XRD analysis confirmed that the crystal belongs to the orthorhombic structure with lattice parameter a=6.6966(3) Å, b=12.4530(5) Å, c=15.2432(5) Å and space group P212121. Presence of various functional groups in l-PSCM and protonation of the ions were confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) analysis. The melting point of the single crystal was found to be 126 °C using DSC. Ultraviolet–visible spectral analyses showed that the crystal has low UV cut-off at 226 nm combined with very good transparency of 90% in a wide range. The optical band gap was estimated to be 5.82 eV. Capacitance and dielectric-loss measurements were carried out at different temperatures in the frequency range 1 kHz–2 MHz. The dielectric constant and loss factor were found to be 21 and 0.03 at 1 kHz at room temperature, respectively. Microhardness mechanical studies show that hardness number (Hv) increases with load for l-PSCM single crystals the by Vickers microhardness method. Second harmonic generation (SHG) efficiency was found to be 0.078 times the value of KDP.