Nucleation kinetics of a new nonlinear optical crystal

The induction period of various proportion of urea–thiourea zinc chloride crystal in water has been measured experimentally using the visual observation method. The induction period, which is inversely proportional to the nucleation rate, has been used to estimate the interfacial tension between the urea–thiourea zinc chloride and water; hence, the nucleation parameters like critical radius (r*), number of molecules in the radius (r*) and Gibbs free energy change for the formation of a critical nucleus (∆G*) have been calculated.