Influence of polar solvents on the growth and characteristic aspects of m-nitroaniline single crystals

In the present research work, we intend to examine the crystal growth aspects of the prominent material of Meta-nitroaniline (m-NA) in three different solvents such as methanol, ethanol and acetonitrile such that their comparative structural, as well as physical properties are reported on the basis of the obtained results. All the three single crystals i.e., m-Nitroaniline with methanol as the solvent (NAM), m-Nitroaniline with ethanol as the solvent (NAE), and m-Nitroaniline with acetonitrile as the solvent (NAA) were grown by employing the conventional slow evaporation method. The powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) study confirms the crystal structure of the grown crystals. The functional groups present in the grown crystals have been verified by FT-IR spectral analysis. The UV–Visible spectrum reveals that all the crystals have comprehensive transparency almost in the entire visible region. NAA crystal has a high band gap value (2.66 eV) compared to the other crystals. The dielectric study reveals a low dielectric constant and low dielectric loss of the crystals at high-frequency ranges and with respect to different temperatures. Thermal stability of the NAM, NAE and NAA crystals are identified to be with the respective melting points of 266, 265, and 268 °C. Hence, the NAA crystal has a high melting point (268 °C) compared to the other crystals. The studies on the electrical and optical properties of these polar solvent crystals reveal that these compounds could be more suited for photonic and NLO applications.