Morphology and Physical Properties of l-Arginine Trifluoroacetate Crystals

Morphology of a novel semiorganic nonlinear optical crystal, l-arginine trifluoroacetate (+(NH2CNH(CH2)3CH(NH3+)COO−·CF3COO−) has been indexed. The crystal has nine developed facets with major ones (1 01) (1 00) and (001). The dielectric constant and dielectric loss were recorded both as function of frequency and temperature in detail. The measured specific heat values of LATF are larger than those of LAP and KDP. The thermal expansion is highly anisotropic along different directions. The refractive indices and optical damage threshold have also been investigated for the first time.