Influence of metallic dopants on the growth, optical and mechanical properties of pure ammonium oxalate crystals

Abstract Ammonium Oxalate (AO), an organic nonlinear optical crystal was grown by slow evaporation solution growth technique. With an insight to explore the impact of impurities, metallic dopants (Cu+, Zn+ and Mn+) were added to pure AO and doped crystals were grown. FT - IR spectra were recorded for both pure and metal doped crystals of AO to identify the functional groups and confirm the inclusion of the dopants. The UV–Visible spectral studies were carried out for both pure and doped crystal to measure the absorbance and transmittance. The alteration in the optical band gap due to the inclusion of dopants were calculated and the obtained results supports the suitability of pure and doped materials in tuning optoelectronic devices. NLO studies were carried out on both pristine and doped crystals to measure the enhancement of the nonlinear properties due to the dopants added. Vickers hardness test was carried out on both pristine and doped AO to analyze the mechanical properties. Z-scan studies revealed that saturable absorption was exhibited by pure AO, Cu+ doped AO and Zn+ doped AO.