Growth, optical, thermal, dielectric and mechanical studies of sodium hydrogen succinate single crystal: A third-order NLO material

Sodium hydrogen succinate, an alkali metallo-organic third-order nonlinear optical crystal, had been grown successfully using aqueous solution by slow evaporation technique at room temperature. Transparent single crystals were selected and subjected to single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis to identify lattice parameters, space group and morphology. The grown crystal was further subjected to powder X-ray diffraction to analyze the crystalline quality, UV–Vis–NIR spectral analysis to reveal optical transparency, FTIR spectroscopy for confirmation of the functional group analysis and TG–DTG/DSC analysis to determine the thermal stability. The dielectric constant and dielectric loss were studied as a function of frequency at different temperatures, and the results were discussed. The mechanical properties were calculated by Vickers microhardness test, and the third-order nonlinear optical parameters such as nonlinear refractive index, nonlinear absorption coefficient and real and imaginary parts of the third-order nonlinear optical susceptibility were determined by Z-scan technique.