The effect of shock wave on structural and optical properties of l-alanine acetate single crystals

The present work investigates the effects of shock waves on the optical and structural properties of l -Alanine Acetate (LAA) single crystal for the first time in the literature. It is then cut and polished with (011) plane crystal and the Mach number of 1.7 has been considered for the shock wave recovery experiment. The crystal structure and optical transmittance stabilities have been measured at different shock numbers, such as 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, respectively, using the X-ray diffraction technique and UV–Visible spectrometer and the obtained results are systematically compared. An optical microscope examination was conducted to observe the changes in the surface morphology of shocked and control LAA crystals and found the defect formation at the 5th shocked condition. According to the XRD analysis, the title crystal did not undergo the crystallographic structural changes at shocked conditions; however, it experienced significant structural deformations and peak splitting which reduced the degree of crystalline nature of the title crystal. Optical spectroscopic results demonstrated that the optical transmittance is reduced to the number of shock pulses and the values are found to be 55, 40, 38, 32, 22, and 12% for 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 shocks, respectively, at 800 nm. The formation of defects on the surface and reduction of the optical transmittance of the test crystal is due to the shock wave-induced structural deformations but the crystal does not undergo any structural phase transitions.