Study on Growth Habit, SHG and Thermal Properties of Urea Phosphate Doped KDP Crystals

Abstract

Pure and doped with Urea Phosphate single crystals of Potassium Dihydrogen Phosphate (KDP) were grown by the low temperature solution growth method, adopting the technique of slow evaporation of the solvent for nonlinear optical applications. The change in the growth habit of the doped KDP crystals has been reported. The study confirms the decrease in the growth rate along c-axis with increasing the dopant concentration. The doping of the Urea Phosphate in the grown crystal has been confirmed qualitatively by the FT-IR spectroscopy. Form the UV-Visible-NIR transmission study; it was observed that the transparency of the crystal increases with dopant concentration. Thermo Gravimetric Analysis shows that the thermal stability of the crystal decreases with dopant concentration. The crystal structure of doped crystal was determined from Powder X-Ray diffraction studies. The improvement in Second Harmonic Generation efficiency of doped crystal has also been reported.