Single crystal of Maleic Acid (MA) were grown by the slow evaporation technique at room temperature has been employed for the growth of non-linear optical MA crystal. The full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the diffraction curves is 13 arcs, which is close to that expected from the plane wave theory of dynamical X-ray diffraction. The laser damage threshold is directly related to the impurities present in the crystal and the measured higher laser damage threshold indicates the suitability of the crystal for device fabrication. The Z-scan measurement with 632.8 nm laser pulses revealed that non-linear refractive index of the crystal is in the range of 3.29 x10-12 m2/W. The chemical etching studies were carried out to study the shape and distribution of etch pits in the grown crystal.
