Structural, spectral, thermal, dielectric, mechanical and optical properties of urea l-alanine acetate single crystals

A new organic nonlinear optical crystal, urea l-alanine acetate (ULAA) has been grown by solution growth using slow cooling technique with the vision to improve the properties of the l-alanine crystals. Urea and l-alanine material were mixed in the molar ratio 1:4. Solubility and metastable zone width were determined. Single crystal XRD analyses revealed that the crystal lattice of ULAA is orthorhombic system, primitive lattice with cell parameters a=5.7971 Å, b=6.0391 Å, c=12.3276 Å with space group P212121 (D24). High-resolution X-ray diffraction (HR-XRD) analysis was carried out to study their crystalline perfection. FTIR spectrum was recorded to identify the presence of functional groups and molecular structure was confirmed by 1H NMR spectrum. From the mass spectrum, the ratio of compound formation of ULAA was analyzed. Thermal strength of the grown crystal has been studied using thermo-gravimetric (TG) and differential thermal analysis (DTA). Dielectric measurements reveal that the grown crystals have very low dielectric loss. The mechanical behavior was studied by Vickers microhardness test. The grown crystals were found to be transparent in the entire visible region. Preliminary measurement using Kurtz powder technique with Nd-YAG laser light of wavelength 1064 nm indicates that their second harmonic generation (SHG) efficiency is roughly equal to that of pure KDP.