Spectroscopic, optical, thermal and AC conductivity studies on semi-organic nonlinear optical crystal: AMCTC

Good quality needle shaped (14 x 3 x 3 mm(3)) single crystals of ammonium mercury chloride thiocyanate (NH4[HgCl2(SCN)]; AMCTC) were grown using slow solvent evaporation method for the first time. The incorporation of thiocyanate ligand is confirmed by the strong and highly intense FT-IR band observed at 2112.0 cm(-1), which corresponds to the stretching frequency vibration of CN. The signal at about 120 ppm of FT-NMR spectrum is a strong evidence, which in turn supports the binding of thiocyanate in the resulting compound of AMCTC. Further, the sample was also subjected to UV-Vis-NIR and TG-DTA and DSC studies to understand the range of optical transparency and thermal stability of the sample, respectively. The melting point of AMCTC is found to be 151.7 A degrees C. The powder second harmonic generation efficiency of the sample is superior to potassium dihydrogen phosphate.