Single crystal of piperazinium L-tartrate (PPLT) was grown by slow cooling technique. The crystallanity of grown single crystal was characterized by powder XRD analysis. The solubility, metastable zonewidth and induction period were determined experimentally by adopting gravimetric, polythermal and isothermal method respectively. The experimentally determined interfacial energies agree very well with the theoretically estimated values. The nucleation parameters such as Gibbs free energy change, radius of critical nucleus, nucleation rate and number of molecules present in the critical nuclei of PPLT crystal were evaluated based on the classical theory of nucleation. The nonlinear optical property of the grown crystal was analyzed by using a Q-switched Nd:YAG laser and the second harmonic generation efficiency of the grown crystal was compared with KDP. © 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.