Growth and characterization of chalcone derivative single crystal

A novel organic non-linear optical material 1-(4-methylphenyl)-3-(4- N, N dimethyl amino phenyl)-2-propen-1-one has been synthesized by the standard method. The synthesized compound was purified by repeated re-crystallization process. To confirm the synthesized compound an FT-IR spectra was recorded and the various functional groups present in the compound were identified. Good quality crystals were grown by slow evaporation technique using acetone as solvent. The grown crystals were characterized by UV-Visible and powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies. The XRD study, revealed that the crystals are in the orthorhombic system with a space group P212121 and the corresponding lattice parameters are a=7.3710Å, b=11.6200Å and c=17.6590Å. Using optical spectra, the optical energy gap of the crystal is estimated to be 2.40 eV. The refractive index of the crystal is measured using Brewster's angle method and the density using standard method. The second harmonic generation (SHG) efficiency of 0.8 times that of Urea of the crystal was obtained using ND-YAG laser (λ=1064nm).