Growth, structural, optical, mechanical, and thermal studies of urea barium acetate crystal for NLO applications.

Single urea barium acetate (UBA) crystals are formed from an aqueous solution using the slow evaporation approach. Various characterization techniques were used to analyze the resulting crystal. The structural analysis shows it is a space group C monoclinic crystal system member. Using powder diffraction study results, the average crystallite size of the crystals by W–H plot is determined to be 46 nm. FTIR analysis was used to ascertain the occurrence of different functional groups. An optical absorption analysis was conducted, and perfect transparency in the visible light range was obtained at a reduced limiting wavelength of 310 nm and an optical band gap of 4 eV. An elemental analysis was conducted to ensure that every element was present in the crystal matrix. Analysis of the surface morphology was performed using scanning electron micrographs. According to study results on thermogravimetric differential thermal analysis, UBA is thermally stable up to 160 °C. The mechanical response was examined using Vicker’s microhardness tool. The Kurtz powder approach was employed to investigate the nonlinear optical character. The second harmonic generation efficiency is estimated to be 1.67 times higher than that of the pure KDP crystal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]