Studies on the optical and dielectric properties of a zinc thiourea chloride NLO single crystal

Single crystals of a nonlinear optical material, zinc thiourea chloride were grown by the slow evaporation technique. The crystal structure and lattice parameters of the grown crystal were determined by the single crystal X-ray diffraction studies. The single crystal XRD revealed that the material crystallized in a orthorhombic crystal system. Optical studies were carried out and it was found that the tendency of transmission observed from the specimen, with respect to the wavelength of light, is practically more suitable for opto-electronic applications. The optical band gap is found to be 4.30 eV. Optical constants such as the band gap, refractive index, reflectance, extinction coefficient and real (?_r) and imaginary (?_i) components of the dielectric constant and electric susceptibility were determined from the UV–vis–NIR spectrum. The dielectric constant and dielectric loss of zinc thiourea chloride were measured in the different frequency range from 50 Hz to 5 MHz at different temperatures. Further, electronic properties, such as valence electron plasma energy, Penn gap, Fermi energy and electronic polarizability of the grown crystal have been estimated.