Crystal growth, thermal, optical and microhardness studies of tris (thiourea) zinc sulphate - a semiorganic NLO material

Tris (thiourea) zinc sulphate (ZTS), a semiorganic nonlinear optical (NLO) material has been synthesized at 30degreesC. The solubility was determined in different solvents such as water, ethanol and water mixture of ethanol (1:1). Good quality single crystals with size 10 x 8 x 6 mm(3) were grown by slow evaporation technique within three weeks with approximate growth rate of 0.5 mm/day. The grown crystals have been subjected to single crystal X-ray diffraction to determine the unit cell dimensions and morphology. The TGA and DTA reveal that the material has good thermal stability. The UV-Vis spectrum shows that the material has wide optical transparency in the entire visible region. The second harmonic generation was confirmed by Kurtz powder method. The birefringence of the crystal was measured in the visible region and it was found to vary with the wavelength. The microhardness test was carried out in (100) plane and the load dependent hardness was measured. (C) 2004 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.