Ultrasonic study of elastic anisotropy of unidirectional Rochelle salt single crystals grown using the Sankaranarayanan-Ramasamy method.

Sodium potassium tartrate tetrahydrate-NaKC 4 H 4 O 6 ·4H 2 O known as Rochelle salt is a well-known ferroelectric. This paper deals with the following topics: (i) the Sankaranarayanan-Ramasamy method of growth of a parallelepiped-shaped single crystal of Rochelle salt having the (1 0 0), (0 1 0) and (0 0 1) planes mutually perpendicular to each other, (ii) evaluation of the second-order elastic stiffness constants C 11 , C 22 , C 33 , C 44 , C 55 and C 66 using the parallelepiped-shaped single-crystal sample of Rochelle salt , (iii) growth of large [0 1 1]-, [1 0 1]- and [1 1 0]-oriented cylindrical-shaped single crystals of Rochelle salt from appropriately prepared seeds using the same method, (iv) determination of elastic constants C 23 , C 13 and C 12 using the [0 1 1]-, [1 0 1]- and [1 1 0]-oriented single-crystal samples of Rochelle salt, respectively, and (v) calculations of elastic compliance constants S 11 , S 22 , S 33 , S 44 , S 55 , S 66 , S 12 , S 23 and S 13 , Young’s modulus E , bulk modulus K , Poisson’s ratio υ , linear compressibility β 1 , β 2 and β 3 along the three principal directions and volume compressibility β of the crystal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]