Growth and characterization of pure and metal ions-doped l-Taurine: a third-order nonlinear optical crystal for photonic applications

Pure and 1, 3, 5 mol% of nickel- and cobalt-doped l -Taurine (LT) crystals were grown by a slow evaporation method. Diffraction analysis was used to find the type of crystal system. PXRD study evinces that the crystals are highly crystalline in nature and the variation in peak position and intensity, as well as EDAX, confirmed the presence of dopants in the LT crystal matrix. The percentage of transmittance and thermal stability of LT crystal is improved upon doping of nickel and cobalt ions. The characteristic of the dielectric constant and tangent loss of the grown crystals are studied at different temperatures. The nonoverlapping small polaron tunneling is found to prevail for a.c. conduction. Hardness study ascertained that the pure and doped crystals fall to the soft material category and followed the RISE effect. The Z-scan study revealed that the grown crystals are self-defocusing nature, exhibited reverse saturable absorption, and possessed susceptibility of the order 10 −6 esu. The overall results suggest that the grown could be promising materials for third-order NLO applications.