Advancing sustainable optoelectronics: Bis (diisopropylammonium) molybdate (SR-IPAM) single crystal for high-efficiency SHG, optical limiting, and THz emission
摘要
In order to investigate its potential as a nonlinear optical (NLO) and terahertz (THz) generating material, a high-quality, bulk Bis (diisopropylammonium) molybdate (SR-IPAM) single crystal was successfully produced utilizing the Sankaranarayanan–Ramasamy (S–R) process. Single-crystal X-ray diffraction demonstrated that SR-IPAM crystallizes in the tetragonal, non-centrosymmetric space group P4₃2₁2, suited for second-order NLO processes. The crystal has a refractive index of 1.734, a sharp UV cutoff, mild birefringence, and good optical transparency. Excellent crystalline perfection with a small FWHM of 13.192 arcsec was found by high-resolution X-ray diffraction. Mechanical experiments indicated reverse indentation size effect behavior, suggesting strong structural stiffness. The SR-IPAM crystal demonstrated efficient optical limiting with a saturation threshold near 3.3 mW mm⁻2, and a laser damage threshold of 0.645 GW cm⁻2, showing strong photostability. SHG efficiency was measured to be 5.9 times higher than KDP, and Maker fringe analysis gave an effective nonlinear coefficient of 0.1339 pm V⁻1. Furthermore, substantial nonlinear refractive behavior was seen in third-order nonlinear investigations, with χ(3) = 3.01 × 10⁻2 esu. Most notably, SR-IPAM displayed unambiguous THz emission through optical rectification employing 140 fs, 800 nm pulses, validating its capacity as a prospective THz-generating crystal. These discoveries position SR-IPAM as a multipurpose NLO material suited for frequency conversion, THz photonics, and high-power optoelectronic applications.