Growth and structural and physical properties of diisopropylammonium bromide molecular single crystals

Abstract

Large single crystals of the promising molecular organic ferroelectric diisopropylammonium bromide (DIPAB) have been grown by the solution technique. A structural study was performed using single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. The twin element of a selected DIPAB crystal was identified by a morphological study. Intermolecular interactions present in the grown crystal were explored by Hirshfeld surface (three-dimensional) and fingerprint plot (two-dimensional) studies. In UV–vis spectroscopy, the DIPAB crystal has shown high transparency with a wide direct band gap of 5.65 eV. In the photoluminescence spectrum, sharp UV and blue emissions were observed at 370, 392, 417 and 432 nm. The electrical properties were investigated by measuring the dielectric constant (∊) and loss (tanδ) of the grown crystal. The DIPAB crystal exhibits a promising piezoelectric charge coefficient (d33) value of 18 pC N−1, which makes it suitable for transducer applications. A high ferroelectric Curie temperature (Tc≃ 425 K) with high remnant polarization (20.52 µC cm−2) and high coercive field (12.25 kV cm−1) were observed in the as-grown crystal. Vickers microhardness analysis shows that the value of Meyer's index (n= 7.27) belongs to the soft material range, which was also confirmed by void analysis along three crystallographic axes. It is shown that the DIPAB crystal has potential for optical, ferroelectric and piezoelectric applications.