Iranian Journal of Materials Science and Engineering

The study of amino acid based nonlinear optical (NLO) materials with optimum physical properties is an important area due to their practical applications such as optical communication, optical computing, optical information processing, optical disk data storage, laser fusion reactions, laser remote sensing, colour display, medical diagnostics, etc. Also, microelectronic industries require crystals which possess low dielectric constant at higher frequency. Keeping this in view, attempts have been made to grow nonlinear optical crystals and study their optical, electrical and mechanical properties. Nonlinear optical single crystals of dichloro-diglycine zinc II have been grown by slow evaporation method. The grown crystals were characterized using single crystal X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), UV-VIS-NIR spectrum, thermal, mechanical and dielectric studies. The results of characterization studies have been discussed in detail to understand their properties. The grown crystals have better thermal stability and sufficient mechanical strength. They are capable of inducing polarization due to dielectric behaviour when powerful laser beam is incident on them. The various characterization studies suggest that the grown crystals are promising materials for optoelectronic and nonlinear optical applications.