Growth and characterization of nonlinear optical γ-glycine single crystal from lithium acetate as solvent

Single crystals of organic nonlinear optical material, γ-glycine were grown by slow evaporation technique from aqueous solutions of glycine and lithium acetate. The γ-phase was confirmed by single crystal XRD and powder XRD analysis. Presence of various functional groups was identified by FTIR spectrum analysis. Thermal analysis was performed to study the thermal stability of the grown crystals. The dielectric and microhardness studies of the crystals were determined. The optical analysis shows that UV cut-off of γ-glycine is at 240 nm and it has a wide transparency window. The second harmonic generation relative efficiency of the grown crystals was measured by Kurtz and Perry powder technique using Nd:YAG laser and was observed to be 3.4 times that of potassium dihydrogen orthophosphate.