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ARTICLE

Investigation on Nonlinear Optical (NLO) Properties and Surface Morphologies of Organic Chiral Monomer Crystals of (R)-N-(1-phenyl-ethyl) methacrylamide and its Polymer and Copolymers

DIBYENDU S. BAG^*, KM. MEENU, AKANSHA DIXIT, N. ESWARA PRASAD

Defence Materials and Stores Research and Development Establishment (DMSRDE), G. T. Road, Kanpur-208013, INDIA

* Corresponding Author: e-mail:

Journal of Polymer Materials 2018, 35(1), 15-32.

Abstract

(R)-N-(1-phenyl-ethyl) methacrylamide (R-NPEMAM) was synthesized which is an organic chiral monomer. The crystals of such monomer were obtained by recrystallization of the synthesized product from ethanol-water mixture. It was polymerized with 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) and a crosslinking monomer, N,N ’ methylene bisacrylamide in toluene medium. These materials have been characterized by different analytical techniques such as FTIR, elemental and SEM analyses for their structural and morphological investigation. The organic monomer is a chiral molecule and its optical rotation was observed to be: [α]_D²⁵=28o (C 1.0 DMF). On the other hand, optical rotations were observed to be: 35o for its polymer (CP) and 8 to 21o for its copolymers having different chiral content. Such organic and polymeric materials were studied for their NLO properties. The relative second harmonic generation (SHG) efficiency of organic chiral monomer crystal (CCM) was 1.22 times that of KDP, whereas the values of polymer and copolymers were slightly less (0.87 to 0.94) than that of the KDP crystal. However, all these values are comparable to the property of other organic crystals and also to the recently reported SHG efficiency of 1.5 times for organic 4-chloroanilinium-L-tartrate monohydrate single crystal. These materials may find their potential nonlinear optical applications.

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