INTRODUCTIONNon-linear optical (NLO) crystals have a great demand due to various applications in information technology and industrial applications. In previous years, organometallic materials have been attracting in the nonlinear optical field, because the flexibility available with organometallic compounds to combine the advantages of organic molecules with those of inorganic salts is very significant, which can be achieved by metal variation, ligand variation, coordination geometry, oxidation state, electron donating capability of the metal or ligand and stabilization of unstable organic fragments [1,2]. Usually, the centrosymmetric nature of thiourea molecule is combined with inorganic salt to achieve non-centrosymmetric material possessing good NLO properties. Several metal-organic complexes of thiourea materials have been designed [3,4]
EXPERIMENTALBis-thiourea nickel barium chloride complex was synthesized using AR grade stoichiometric incorporation of nickel chloride (0.5 M), barium chloride (0.5 M) and thiourea (2.0 M). This solution was stirred using magnetic stirrer to achieve homogenization. This homogenization solution was heated and kept for evaporation to dryness at 318 K. Bis-thiourea nickel barium chloride was synthesized and crystals were grown by slow aqueous solvent evaporation technique. The powder XRD analysis of grown crystal was suggested to have orthorhombic crystal structure. The unit cell parameters of grown crystal as: a = 9.70 Å, b = 10.68 Å and c = 17.95 Å. The contents of nickel and barium in the grown crystals was analyzed using EDAX. The presence of various functional groups was confirmed by FTIR spectroscopy studies. From the UV-visible spectrum, the material has about 90 % optical transparency in the entire visible region. From the thermogravimetric analysis, it was found that the crystals remained stable up to 170 ºC. The endothermic reactions were identified from the differential thermal analysis.