Growth, optical and thermal studies on organic nonlinear optical crystal: 2-Furoic acid

2-Furoic acid (2FA), an organic third order nonlinear optical single crystal, has been synthesized and grown successfully by slow solvent evaporation technique. The space group and lattice parameters of the grown crystals were obtained by single crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. The presence of the functional groups was confirmed by Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. Optical absorption studies reveal low absorption in the UV and visible regions and the UV cut-off wavelength is found to be at 240 nm. The thermal stability of the material examined by TGA analysis, reveals that the material is thermally stable up to 130 °C. The third order nonlinear optical parameters (nonlinear refractive index, nonlinear absorption coefficient and real and imaginary parts of the third order nonlinear optical susceptibility) were derived by Z-scan technique. This reveals that the crystal has a negative refractive index, which indicates the defocusing nature of the material.