Bulk growth, structure, optical properties and laser damage threshold of organic nonlinear optical crystals of Imidazolium L-Ascorbate

Bulk, transparent organic nonlinear optical (NLO) single-crystals of imidazolium L-Ascorbate (ImLA) were grown using slow-evaporation. Crystal structure was determined by single crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. Preliminary linear optical measurements through UV-Visible and infrared spectroscopy revealed good optical transmittance and a low near-UV cutoff wavelength at 256 nm. Kurtz and Perry powder test revealed that ImLA is a phase-matchable NLO material with a second harmonic generation (SHG) efficiency of 1.2 times larger than that of standard KH2PO4 (KDP). Laser damage thresholds were determined for ImLA.