Growth and characterization of organic second order nonlinear optical (NLO) 4-chloroanilinium-l-tartrate monohydrate single crystals

•The title crystal is successfully grown by solvent evaporation method.•The SHG conversion efficiency is 1.5 times greater than that of KDP.•The grown crystal is phase-matchable.•It has 65% transparency in the entire visible region.•Mechanically it belongs to soft material category. The protonated organic single crystal of 4-chloroanilinium-l-tartrate monohydrate (4CALTM) was successfully grown by slow evaporation solution technique at room temperature. Powder X-ray diffraction confirmed the crystal system of the grown crystal and its lattice parameters were calculated. Microanalysis confirms the elemental compositions and the vibrations of the functional groups were confirmed by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy technique. The grown crystal exhibits 65% of optical transparency in the 289–800 nm range and the optical bandgap was calculated. The dielectric constant and loss were studied as a function of frequency at different temperatures. The TG-DSC analysis shows the thermal stability of the grown crystal. Vickers hardness measurement reveals the mechanically soft nature of the crystal, and it obeys the reverse indentation size effect (RISE). The positive photoconductivity of the crystal was supported by a linear increase of photocurrent on illumination. Kurtz – Perry powder technique shows the second harmonic generation efficiency of a range of particles (25–300 μm) and the phasematching ability of the crystal.