Experimental investigations on the synthesis, growth and characterization of MCCTC single crystals.

Single crystals of mercury cadmium chloride thiocyanate [Hg3CdCl2(SCN)6; (MCCTC)] were grown from ethanol solvent using slow solvent evaporation technique for the first time. The cell parameters of the grown crystals of MCCTC were confirmed by single crystal X-ray diffraction technique. The various functional groups of resulting compound were well-identified using FT-IR analysis. The UV-Vis-NIR studies revealed that the ultra violet cut off wavelength lies at 270 nm. It is also interesting to note that the sample exhibited wide range of optical transparency from 270 to 2000 nm in ethanol solution, which might be due to the incorporation of the halogen ion (Cl-) in the grown crystal of MCCTC. The second harmonic generation efficiency of MCCTC is found to be superior (about seventeen times) to KDP and (about three times) urea. TGA-DTA and DSC analysis showed that the thermal stability of the sample is retained up to 171.3°C above which phase change occurred from HgCdCl2(SCN)6 to CdHg(SCN)4 with other fragments. The latent heat of the sample is found to be 0.7652 J/Kg. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]