N-Methylurea Succinic Acid (NMUSA): an optically non-linear organic crystal for NLO device application

Slow evaporation solution growth technique was adopted to grow an optically non-linear N-Methylurea Succinic acid crystal. High resolution x-ray diffraction studies showed that the sample was free from crystal imperfection. Single crystal XRD studies showed that these crystals belonged to monoclinic system with P21/n being their space group. Relevant functional groups were identified from their FTIR spectra, while their band gap was evaluated to be 4.35 eV from UV–vis spectra. The grown crystals possess good thermal and mechanical stabilities as elucidated from TG-DTA and Vickers hardness measurements respectively. Laser damage threshold of the sample was found to be 6.9 GW cm−2 when measured using a 1064 nm, 5 Hz, 10 ns Nd:YAG laser. The third order nonlinear optical parameters of the grown NMUSA crystal were found out using Z-scan measurement, which was further used to exploit these crystals for optical limiting applications.