Investigations on crystal perfection, mechanical and thermo-electric properties of L-ornithine monohydrochloride single crystal: A promising material for nonlinear optical applications

L-Ornithine monohydrochloride (LOMHCI) single crystal is a potential material for non linear optical and opto-electronic applications. In the present study, good quality single crystals were grown by slow evaporation solution technique at room temperature. The bulk single crystals were subjected to various characterization analyses in order to investigate and elaborate the important properties of the title compound. Crystal defects were examined by employing high-resolution X-ray diffraction (HRXRD) technique and found good crystalline perfection. Surface morphology was assessed by SEM analysis. To investigate the mechanical properties at nanoscale, nanoindentation experiment have been performed. Various mechanical properties like hardness, stiffness, Young's modulus were studied and found that both hardness and Young's modulus depends upon the peak load. Photo-acoustic characterization and DSC were performed to investigate the thermal properties like thermal diffusivity, thermal conductivity, thermal effusivity and specific heat capacity. These results confirm that the title compound has high stability as compared to other single crystals of amino acids family. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.