Growth, characterizations and nonlinear optical studies of dimethylamine substituted anthracene chalcone single crystals

•DA-ANC single crystals belong to monoclinic crystal system with P21/n space group.•NMR & FTIR confirms the structure and UV-Vis-NIR shows transmittance in visible region.•NLO studies reveals strong two-photon absorption and self-defocusing effect.•The material exhibits optical limiting (6.47 kJ cm−2) and switching behavior.•DFT studies were performed to understand the structure-property relationships. We report the structural, thermal, linear and nonlinear optical (NLO) properties of a newly grown anthracene based chalcone single crystal, (2E)-1-(anthracen-9-yl)-3-[4-(dimethylamino)phenyl]prop-2-en-1-one (abbreviated as DA-ANC). The chalcone was synthesized by Claisen-Schmidt condensation reaction and the single crystals were grown by slow evaporation of solution growth technique. Single-crystal XRD, NMR (1H & 13C), FT-IR, UV-Vis-NIR spectroscopies, TG/DTA, and computational DFT studies were performed to characterize the crystals. The intermolecular interactions were described by Hirshfeld surface analysis (HSA). The third-order NLO properties of DA-ANC were studied by Z-scan technique using CW-DPSS laser at 532 nm. Open aperture Z-scan exhibits strong two-photon assisted reverse saturation absorption (RSA) with two-photon absorption (TPA) coefficient (β) 6.9 × 10−5 cmW−1. Closed aperture Z-scan reveals the negative nonlinear refraction arising due to self-defocusing effect with nonlinear refractive index (n2) coefficient -1.31 × 10−8 cm2W−1. The optical limiting behavior based on TPA was performed and limiting-threshold was evaluated to be 6.47 kJ cm−2. The obtained one-photon and two-photon figures of merit satisfied the conditions of all-optical switching. The results show that DA-ANC can be a potential candidate for NLO applications. [Display omitted]