Growth and characterization of organic p-nitroacetophenone single crystals for nonlinear optical applications

• Published in: Journal of materials science. Materials in electronics 2024-06, Vol.35 (17), p.1129, Article 1129
• Main Authors: Anitha, T. R., Goma, S., Suthan, T., Gnanasambandam, C., Girisun, T. C. Sabari
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Chemistry and Materials Science; Crystal growth; Differential thermal analysis; Diffraction patterns; Electronic properties; Functional groups; Materials Science; Nonlinear optics; Optical and Electronic Materials; Optical properties; Parallel plates; Parameters; Photoluminescence; Pyrolysis; Refractivity; Room temperature; Single crystals; Thermal stability; X ray powder diffraction; X-ray diffraction
• ISSN: 0957-4522; 1573-482X
• DOI: 10.1007/s10854-024-12886-w

An organic material p-nitroacetophenone single crystal was grown by the slow evaporation solution growth method at room temperature. A single crystal X-ray diffraction study shows that the grown crystal belongs to the monoclinic crystal system with centrosymmetric space group P 2 1 / c . The powder X-ray diffraction pattern reveals the crystalline nature of the grown crystal. The functional groups present in the grown crystal are confirmed by FTIR and FT-Raman spectral analyses. In the UV–Visible studies, the linear optical transmittance of the grown p-nitroacetophenone crystal is recorded and the optical parameters such as the optical band gap, extinction coefficient, refractive index, optical conductivity and Urbach energy are estimated. Thermogravimetric (TG) and differential thermal analyses (DTA) were used to analyse the thermal stability of the grown single crystal. The Coats–Redfern, Horowitz–Metzger and Broido methods are used to compute the kinetic and thermodynamic parameters in the pyrolysis region. The dielectric behaviour of the grown p-nitroacetophenone single crystal is investigated using the parallel plate capacitor method. The electronic properties such as the plasma energy, the Penn gap, the Fermi energy and the electronic polarizability are calculated. The photoluminescence analysis indicates that the grown crystal has violet colour emission. The third order nonlinear optical absorption and the optical limiting properties of the grown crystal are analysed using the open aperture Z-scan technique.