Investigations on nucleation, HRXRD, optical, piezoelectric, polarizability and Z-scan analysis of Learginine maleate dihydrate single crystals S. Sakthy Priya a , A. Alexandar a , P. Surendran a , A. Lakshmanan a , P. Rameshkumar a, * , P. Sagayaraj b a PG and Research Department of Physics, Periyar E.V.R College (Autonomous), Tiruchirappalli, 620023, India b PG and Research Department of Physics, Loyola College (Autonomous), Chennai, 600034, India article info Article history: Received 20 December 2016 Received in revised form 20 February 2017 Accepted 21 February 2017 Keywords: Single crystal HRXRD Photoluminescence Polarizability Z-Scan abstract An efficient organic nonlinear optical single crystal of L-arginine maleate dihydrate (LAMD) has been grown by slow evaporation solution technique (SEST) and slow cooling technique (SCT). The crystalline perfection of the crystal was examined using higheresolution Xeray diffractometry (HRXRD) analysis. Photoluminescence study confirmed the optical properties and defects level in the crystal lattice. Elec- tromechanical behaviour was observed using piezoelectric co-efficient (d 33 ) analysis. The photocon- ductivity analysis confirmed the negative photoconducting nature of the material. The dielectric constant and loss were measured as a function of frequency with varying temperature and vice-versa. The laser damage threshold (LDT) measurement was carried out using Nd:YAG Laser with a wavelength of 1064 nm (Focal length is 35 cm) and the obtained results showed that LDT value of the crystal is high compared to KDP crystal. The high laser damage threshold of the grown crystal makes it a potential candidate for second and higher order nonlinear optical device application. The third order nonlinear optical parameters of LAMD crystal is determined by open-aperture and closed-aperture studies using Z- scan technique. The third order linear and nonlinear optical parameters such as the nonlinear refractive index (n 2 ), two photon absorption coefficient (b), Real part (Rec 3 ) and imaginary part (Imc 3 ) of third- order nonlinear optical susceptibility are calculated. © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Amino acid based organic nonlinear optical single crystals are of particular important for the design and formation of different laser operated optoelectronic devices such as modulators, deflectors, optical triggers, high optical disk data storage and optically oper- ated fibers [1]. Materials with inherent high nonlinearity and syn- thetic flexibility to alter their properties make them highly attractive for the technological applications [2]. Recently organic non-centrosymmetric crystalline materials are of great interest due to their applications in nonlinear optics, such as frequency con- version, parametric light generation, terahertz (THz) wave gener- ation, electro-optic light modulation and high speed devices [3]. The organic crystalline materials occupy an intermediate position between the molecular organic compounds with the covalent bonds. The intra-molecular interaction enhances the nonlinear optical susceptibility [4]. Amino acid based compounds like L-valine zinc hydrochloride; L-proline lithium chloride monohydrate and L- tartaric acid have been identified as novel organic NLO materials [5e7]. During the last few decades, researchers have focused their interest in the proton donor carboxyl group and proton acceptor amino group based amino acid single crystals due to their intensive applications in the field of higher order linear and nonlinear optical applications [8]. In the present work, LAMD single crystals were grown by employing slow evaporation solution technique (SEST) and slow cooling technique (SCT). The characterization analyses such as crystalline perfection, optical, electro-mechanical, photoconduc- tivity, dielectric properties and Z-scan were carried out. There are previous reports available on the second order nonlinear optical properties of LAMD crystal and their frequency conversion effi- ciency were exhaustively studied [9]. In this manuscript, nucleation * Corresponding author. E-mail address: rameshkumarevr@gmail.com (P. Rameshkumar). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Optical Materials journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/optmat http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.optmat.2017.02.041 0925-3467/© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Optical Materials 66 (2017) 434e441