Crystal structure, spectroscopic, crystalline perfection and optical studies of a potential optical material: Bis-glycine hydrobromide

Abstract Optically transparent single crystal of Bis-glycine hydrobromide (GHBr) is developed by cost effective slow solvent evaporation method. The GHBr crystal is tested with X-ray diffraction study to understand the molecular structure. Present material crystallizes in the orthorhombic system with the space group of P212121. Spectroscopic studies like FTIR and FT-Raman are carried out on the crystal to confirm the functional groups and to understand the presence of metal vibrations. Chemical construction of the material is further confirmed by 1H NMR and 13C NMR studies. The optical transmittance and optical band gap energy of the crystal are observed to be 75% and 5.53 eV respectively. The third order optical nonlinearity analysis are carried out on the crystal using Z-scan setup and the nonlinear optical susceptibility (χ3) and refractive index (n2) values are estimated to be 1.28 × 10−6 esu and −0.96 × 10−8 cm2/W respectively. The grown crystal is subjected to single shot laser damage threshold (LDT) study and its value is calculated to be 2.54 GW/cm2.