Single crystals of pure and nitro doped 4-hydroxyacetophenone (NLO material
) were grown by slow cooling technique. The single crystals were subjected
to studies of Vicker's microhardness. The Vicker's hardness increases with
the increase in applied load. The UV cut off wavelength of the grown crysta
ls has been measured as about 280 nm from the optical transmission spectra
of the samples. Chemical etching has also been carried out. (C) 2001 Publis
hed by Elsevier Science B.V.