Investigation on the impact of xylenol orange dye on the growth and properties of unidirectional grown KDP crystals for photonic applications

Unidirectional (1 0 1) bulk size xylenol orange dye-doped potassium dihydrogen phosphate single crystals were grown by Vacuum Assisted Sankaranarayanan-Ramasamy method so as to improve the properties of the crystal. The objective is to study the impact of organic dyes on properties of the crystal and understand how it could be used for relevant applications. Optical transmission decreases and thermal properties remain the same for the dye-doped crystals whereas the addition of dye improves mechanical, dielectric and photoconduction properties. On comparison, a stronger absorption is identified at 480 nm for the dye-doped crystal. Laser damage threshold confirms that 0.01 M dye-doped crystal has the value 12.40 GW/cm(2) as compared to 8.59 GW/cm(2) for pure crystal, whilst, second harmonic efficiency as observed by Kurtz test decreases on increasing dye concentration such that crystals of pure, 0.001 M and 0.01 M dye-doped have the respective values of 26.4 mV, 18.1 mV and 17.6 mV.