Effect of zinc acetate addition on crystal growth, structural, optical, thermal properties of glycine single crystals

In the present study, γ-glycine has been crystallized by using zinc acetate dihydrate as an additive for the first time by slow solvent evaporation method. The second harmonic conversion efficiency of γ-glycine crystal was determined using Kurtz and Perry powder technique and was found to be 3.66 times greater than that of standard inorganic material potassium dihydrogen phosphate (KDP). The analytical grade chemicals of glycine and zinc acetate dihydrate were taken in six different molar ratios: 1:0.2, 1:0.4, 1:0.6, 1:0.7, 1:0.8, and 1:0.9 respectively to find out the γ-polymorph of glycine. The lower molar concentration of zinc acetate yield only α-polymorph where as the higher molar concentration of zinc acetate inhibits the γ-polymorph of glycine which was confirmed by single crystal XRD and powder XRD studies. Inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) was carried out to quantify the concentration of zinc element in the grown glycine single crystals. The concentration of zinc element in the presence of grown γ-glycine single crystal is found to be 0.73 ppm. UV–Visible–NIR transmittance spectra were recorded for the samples to analyse the transparency in visible and near infrared region (NIR). The optical band gap Eg was estimated for γ-glycine single crystal using UV–Visible–NIR study. Functional groups present in the samples were identified by FTIR spectroscopic analysis. Differential scanning calorimetry technique was employed to determine the phase transition, thermal stability and melting point of the grown crystal.