Crystal growth, thermal and optical studies on a semiorganic nonlinear optical material for blue-green laser generation

The semiorganic nonlinear optical material l-histidine bromide (l-HB) has been synthesized in aqueous solution and characterized by FT-IR, FT-Raman and FT-NMR spectroscopic techniques. The single crystals with dimensions 9mm x 4mm x 3mm were grown by slow evaporation techniques. The grown crystals were subjected to single crystal X-ray diffraction to determine the unit cell dimensions. The thermal stability of the grown crystal was analyzed by thermogravimetric (TG), differential thermal (DT) and differential scanning calorimetric (DSC) analyses. The UV-vis transmittance spectrum shows that it has a good optical transmittance in the entire visible region with the lower cutoff wavelength at 220 nm. The SHG conversion efficiency and laser damage threshold were measured using a Nd:YAG laser (1064 nm). The optical birefringence was measured in the visible region as a function of temperature in the range 30-150 degrees C by interference technique.