Cryst. Res. Technol. 41, No. 3, 231 – 235 (2006) / DOI 10.1002/crat.200510565 © 2006 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim Growth of high quality anthracene crystals by a simple solution technique G. Madhurambal* 1 and P. Anbu Srinivasan 2 1 A.D.M. College for women, Nagapattinam, 611 001 - India 2 A.V.C. College (Autonomous), Mayiladuthurai. 609 305 – India Received 3 February 2005, revised 6 April 2005, accepted 3 May 2005 Published online 15 February 2006 Key words anthracene, solvents, solution techniques, characterisation studies, morphology. PACS 81.10.-h In recent years considerable effort has gone into the preparation and characterisation of high purity anthracene crystals, since anthracene is used as a model organic molecular crystal in studies of solid-state properties. Studies of organic molecular crystals and their applications in optics and electronics have been increasing attractive interest. Several attempts have been made to grow single crystals of anthracene. This is the first attempt to grow high quality anthracene crystals by solution technique adopting slow evaporation method in different solvents like CS 2 and CCl 4 . The harvested crystals were subjected to various characterization studies. The results of characterisation studies support the purity of solution grown anthracene crystals. The solubility of anthracene in various solvents like CS 2 and CCI 4 was determined. The crystals of anthracene were grown by systematic method of slow evaporation technique in various solvents. Different morphology is noted with varying solvents. The crystal was subjected to XRD studies, FTIR studies and thermal studies. © 2006 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim 1 Introduction R. Ramesh Babu et al. [1] reported that organic single crystals possess unique opto electronic properties because they have delocalized electrons, namely, conjucated electron systems exhibit various photoresponses such as photoconductive, photovoltaic, photocatalytic behaviour and so on. Non – linear optical (NLO) materials have great impact on information, optical computing and optical communication technology and could be used to double or triple the frequency of laser light for high speed processing of data [2]. Organic non linear optical crystals with aromatic rings have high non – linearity, fast response and tailor made flexibility, low mobility large band gap, high non linear co – efficients, higher laser damage threshold when compared to inorganic NLO materials [3]. N. Vijayan et al. [4] reported that non-linear optics has wide applications in the field of telecommunication and optical information storage devices. The organic NLO materials play an important role in SHG, frequency mixing, electro optic modulation, optical parametric oscilation, optical bi- stability etc. Anthracene is one of the organic molecular crystals, which exhibits peculiar optical and electronic properties. It forms colourless monoclinic prismatic crystals with melting point 218°C, in the space group C 5 2h – P2 1/a having unit cell dimensions a = 0.856, b = 0.604, c= 1.116 mn, α = 90 o , β = 124 and χ = 90. Each unit cell has two molecules and a well defined cleavage plane, the ab plane. The volume of the unit cell is about 0.4742 mn 2 with 188 electrons per unit cell. K. R. Babu et al. [5] reported that the gel aided solution method is found to be effective in growing bigger and better quality crystals of anthracene at ambient temperatures. Poly cyclic aromatic hydrocarbons like anthracene was also grown by various methods. Anthracene crystals were grown from vertical Bridgmann technique by A. Arul Chakkaravarthi et al. [6],The quality improvement of the ____________________ * Corresponding author: e-mail: madhumaniam@yahoo.com