Crystal growth, spectral, optical, and thermal characterization of glycyl-l-alanine hydrochloride (GLAH) single crystal

A new semi-organic nonlinear optical material glycyl-l-alanine hydrochloride (GLAH) was grown successfully by slow evaporation solution growth method. The solubility of GLAH was estimated for a wide range of temperatures. Large size single crystal of size 15 × 9 × 6 mm3 was grown at room temperature. The grown crystal was subjected to single crystal X-ray diffraction study which confirms that the grown crystal is monoclinic in nature with the space group P21. The molecular weight of the title compound was estimated by mass spectrometry. Functional groups and the modes of vibrations were identified by FT-IR spectral analysis. The UV–visible spectral study reveals that the percentage of optical transmission of the sample is very high in the entire visible and UV regions. The second harmonic generation of the crystal was confirmed by the Kurtz and Perry technique. The hardness of the sample was tested by microhardness test which shows that the grown crystal belongs to the soft category of materials. The thermal stability of the compound was studied by TG–DTA analyses which indicate that the crystal is thermally stable up to 248.6 °C.