A systematic study on the effect of purity of starting materials on the growth and properties of potassium dihydrogen phosphate single crystals is crucial for the future study of the material for nonlinear optical applications. Potassium dihydrogen phosphate crystals were grown using high pure (99.999%) and ordinary (99.9%) starting raw materials using slow cooling method in identical conditions. Their optical transparency and crystalline perfection are studied by UV and high resolution X-ray diffraction analyses respectively. The results are checked with the help of etching analyses. The full width at half maximum is 8 '' which is close to that expected from the plane wave theory of dynamical X-ray diffraction for an ideally perfect crystal. Results of those studies are correlated with each other. The quantitative results show that the raw material plays an important role in the growth of good quality crystals. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.