Thermal and optical properties of ZTS single crystals in the presence of 1,10-phenanthroline (Phen).

The influence of heteroaromatic N-base (1,10-phenanthroline) (Phen), a new additive as complexing agent on tris(thiourea)zinc(II)sulphate (ZTS) crystals from aqueous solutions at 30 °C is investigated. Crystals were grown using low concentration of the dopant (0.005 M L−1) in the aqueous growth medium and the growth promoting effect (GPE) is much greater because of an increase in the metastable zone width. High dopant concentration decreases GPE. The crystalline perfection of the grown crystals is quite good both in doped and undoped crystals as evaluated by high-resolution X-ray diffractometry (HRXRD). The diffraction curve of a typical Phen doped as-grown ZTS crystal was observed to contain a single peak indicating that the crystal does not contain any epitaxial layer on the surface or internal structural grain boundaries. Not much variation is observed in FT-IR and XRD of pure and doped ZTS. Phen depresses the NLO efficiency of ZTS. It could be ascribed due to the disturbance of charge transfer in the presence of the dopant. The grown crystals were also characterized by UV–Vis, SEM and TG–DTA techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]