Enhancement of stability of growth, structural and NLO properties of KDP crystals due to additive along with seed rotation

Potassium Acetate (CH3COOK) and Potassium Citrate (K3C6H5O7) as new additives were added into the potassium dihydrogen phosphate (KDP) solutions in different molar ratios. The metastable zone width and induction period with and without these additives were determined and compared. Dielectric measurements on pure and doped KDP crystals at various temperatures ranging from 313 to 423 K were carried out by the conventional parallel plate capacitor method which results low dielectric constant value dielectrics in doped crystals. The high resolution XRD Studies show that CH3COOK doped KDP crystal and K3C6H5O7 doped KDP crystal do not contain any internal structural grain boundaries and indicates that the crystalline perfection is very good. Moreover, the addition of these potassium additives improves the quality of the crystal and yields highly transparent crystals with well defined features. The effect of additives on the growth, nucleation kinetics, structural, NLO and optical properties has been investigated. (c) 2009 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim