Structural, optical, electrical properties of new hybrid organic–inorganic NLO single crystal: bis(1H-benzotriazole) hexaaqua-zinc bis(sulfate) tetrahydrate (BZS)

A new hybrid organic–inorganic nonlinear (NLO) single crystal, Bis(1H-benzotriazole) hexaaqua-zinc bis(sulfate) tetrahydrate (BZS), has been successfully synthesized and the single crystals were grown by slow evaporation solution growth technique (SESG) using Millipore water as a solvent. The structure of the BZS crystal was solved and refined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction and demonstrates that the grown crystals belong to a triclinic system with the space group P-1. The asymmetric part of the titled compound contains isolated organic cation (C₆H₆N₃)₂, metallic cation [Zn(H₂O)₆]²⁺, sulfate anion (SO₄)²⁻ and free H₂O molecules. The interplay between the wide number of intermolecular interaction such as O–H···O, N–H···O, C–H···O and π–π stacking interactions were discussed. The optical transmittance spectrum shows that the crystal is excellent transmittance in the entire Vis–NIR region with the cutoff wavelength at 345 nm. The presences of expected functional groups were identified by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The dielectric measurements were carried out at different temperature in the frequency range 100 Hz–5MHz. Furthermore, the studies of its third-order NLO properties using a Z-scan technique demonstrate that the BZS crystal possesses a strong reverse saturable absorption (RSA) and the self-focusing (SF) nature with large second order hyperpolarizability (γ = 6.24 × 10⁻³⁴ esu). All the results indicate that BZS crystal might be the potential candidate for the third-order NLO applications.