Investigations on structural and photoluminescence mechanism of cerium doped L-Histidine hydrochloride mono hydrate single crystals for optical applications

Semi organic nonlinear optical material of Ce3+ ion added L-Histidine hydrochloride monohydrate (LHHC) crystals have been grown successfully by the slow evaporation solution technique (SEST) as well as Sankaranarayanan-Ramasamy (SR) technique. Unit cell data have been measured from the single crystal X-ray diffraction analysis and High resolution X-ray diffraction analysis (HRXRD) study shows relatively a good crystalline perfection. Fourier transform infra-red spectroscopy (FTIR) spectra indicates that the Ce3+ ion is coordinated with carboxylate group of grown crystal. The lower UV-cutoff wavelength of the incorporation of Ce3+ ion in LHHC is 240 nm. The incorporation of Ce3+ ion in the crystal lattice was observed by energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDAX). The nonlinear optical (NLO) efficiency of SR-grown crystal is 3.7 times greater with respect to potassium dihydrogen phosphate (KDP). We report first-time the photoluminescence (PL) mechanism of emission spectrum, which shows broad band located at 350 nm corresponding to 5d -> 4f transition of Ce3+ ion and excited by 250 nm wavelength. The excitation spectrum shows a band at 258 nm due to the 4f -> 5d transition of Ce3+ ion. The nature of decay curve of the grown crystal is bi-exponential with a long life time of tau(2) is 8.8270 mu s. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.