Abstract

Potassium acid phthalate (KAP) is an interesting semi-organic optical material. Optically transparent good quality single crystals of pure and amino acid added KAP single crystals were grown by conventional slow evaporation technique at 32 ^oC and characterized to study the thermal and mechanical stability of the crystal. The x-ray diffraction analysis confirms the presence of amino acid molecules in the KAP crystal matrix in the case of amino acid added KAP single crystals. The thermogravimetric (TG/DTG) and microhardness measurements indicate that the amino acid addition significantly tunes the thermal stability and mechanical strength of the KAP crystal.

Keywords

Semi-organic optical materials, X-ray diffraction, Thermal stability, Mechanical property