Growth, Mechanical, Optical and Impedance Analysis of Sodium Acetate added L-alanine (SALA) Single Crystals

Amino acids are the famous organic materials which can play an important role in nonlinear optics as they contain proton donor carboxylic acid group and the proton acceptor amino group. L-alanine is an organic crystal that belongs to amino acid group composed of optically active material. In this work, sodium acetate added L-alanine single crystals have been grown by solution method with slow evaporation technique for the first time. The cell parameters of the SALA crystal were estimated by X-ray diffraction study. The mechanical properties of SALA crystals were investigated at room temperature using a Vickers hardness tester and various parameters such as work hardening coefficient, stiffness constant, yield strength were evaluated. UV-visible-NIR transmittance spectrum was recorded to study the optical transparency of grown crystal and also the optical band gap of SALA crystal was calculated from the Tauc's plot. The impedance behaviour of the grown crystal was analyzed as a function of frequency.