A peak structure in isothermal luminescence signals in quartz: Origin and implications

Isothermal heating is commonly used in luminescence dosimetry and trap parameter studies. It is often observed that the isothermal luminescence signal has a peak shape instead of a monotonous decay form. We provide here evidence that this peak shape in quartz may equally result from a ‘thermal lag’ problem in contrast to the earlier propositions of non first-order kinetics. Temperature modelling suggests that the peak-shaped signal contains elements of both the ramped — and isothermal — thermoluminescence (TL). The modelled changes in the peak movement as a function of isothermal temperature and the ramp-rate show an excellent agreement with those obtained experimentally. This understanding of thermal lag is extended to optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) measurements for which the effects of isothermal TL contamination and changing thermal assistance during thermal equilibration are discussed. Appropriate methods are suggested to identify thermal lag on the basis of the peak structure, and to circumvent this effect in isothermal methods.     

Photo-transferred thermoluminescence from deep traps in quartz

Photo-transferred thermoluminescence (PTTL) measurements were performed on analytical grade quartz with the aim to study the dependence of the PTTL signal on preheat temperature and light-exposure time. The results proved that, in addition to the well-known contribution due to the electron traps related to the 325 °C thermoluminescence peak, a non-negligible role was played by deep thermally disconnected traps. Moreover, the shape of the time-response curve for the PTTL signal of quartz samples preheated at high temperature values suggested that recombination processes of optically stimulated electrons from deep traps involved also a non-radiative recombination centre.     

Influence of nitrogen implantation on thermoluminescence of synthetic quartz

Thermoluminescence (TL) of synthetic quartz exposed to beta irradiation following implantation with 60?keV N⁺ ions at fluences ranging between 1?×?10¹⁴ and 5?×?10¹⁵?ions/cm² is reported. The glow curve measured at 5°C/s typically consists of a prominent peak near 110°C, studied in this work, and minor glow peaks at around 130°C and 190°C. The TL intensity of the main peak increased both with implantation and with fluence of implantation. The dependence of the intensity on heating rate and fluence suggests that the implantation introduces new defects that may possibly act as recombination centres. The increase in TL intensity with the heating rate exhibited by implanted samples has been observed in other luminescence materials. This anti-quenching phenomenon has been described as a competition effect between multiple luminescence pathways in luminescence materials. Kinetic analysis of the main glow peak using the initial rise, various heating rate and glow curve deconvolution methods shows that the activation energy of the main peak is about 0.7?eV with no systematic change due to ion fluence.     

Influence of argon-implantation on conventional and phototransferred thermoluminescence of synthetic quartz

Conventional and phototransferred thermoluminescence of crystalline synthetic quartz implanted with 70 keV Ar ions at fluences in the range 1?×?10¹⁴–5?×?10¹⁵?ions/cm² is reported. The glow curves, recorded at 5°C/s from beta-irradiated samples of similar mass, show a prominent peak between 100°C and 120°C. The thermoluminescence intensity of all implanted samples was greater than that of the unimplanted one. The increase in sensitivity is attributed to a corresponding increase in the concentration of point defects, as a result of the implantation, which act as electron traps or recombination centres. Kinetic analysis carried out using the peak shape, whole glow-peak and curve-fitting methods produced values of the activation energy, frequency factor and order of kinetics that are generally independent of implantation fluence. This result suggests that implantation did not necessarily affect the nature of the electron traps. With respect to phototransferred thermoluminescence, it was observed that it only appeared in the sample implanted at the highest fluence of 5?×?10¹⁵?ions/cm². This may be so because the concentration of deep traps produced as a result of implantation at low fluence is too low to give rise to phototransferred thermoluminescence. The intensity of the phototransferred thermoluminescence goes through a peak with illumination time. We attribute this behaviour to the relative concentration of holes at recombination centres and phototransferred electrons at shallow traps.     

Investigating the thermally transferred optically stimulated luminescence source trap in fired geological quartz

The pre-dosed thermoluminescence (TL) emission of quartz has been found to be useful in retrospective dosimetry and archaeometry. Though the pre-dosed optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) and TL emissions have been reported to be similar, the former has been found to be un-reliable for the equivalent dose estimation. As this measurement protocol involves thermal heating at around 400 °C, the work reported in this paper investigated the influence of this heating on the OSL using fired specimens from various regions. The results suggested that the discrepancy in the behaviour of two emissions is caused by the presence of the thermally transferred optically stimulated luminescence (TT-OSL) induced by thermal-activation involved in the pre-dose treatment. This transferred signal was observed to be very significant in the case of samples containing a prominent higher-temperature TL peak at ∼375 °C. The characterization of this signal based on (i) the nature of the glow curves, (ii) thermal-annealing of the OSL trap, (iii) observation of the TT-OSL, (iv) bleaching of the source trap and (v) the correlation between TL and OSL seems to suggest that the trap corresponding to this TL peak is the source trap in the TT-OSL emission mechanism.     

Infrared studies on ion irradiated quartz

Damage produced inα- and fused quartz bombarded with low energy (∼ 100 keV) D⁺, He⁺ and Ar⁺ ions, has been studied by observing the changes in their spectrum. Besides bulk reflectivity, the attenuated total reflection spectrum has also been studied, the latter with a view to obtaining the surface polariton frequencies. It is observed that for the same fluence, the changes following D⁺ irradiation are much higher compared to that for Ar⁺ irradiation. The variation of the surface polariton frequency inα-quartz with the damage energy deposited has the same trend as observed earlier for refractive index. Some annealing studies have also been performed in argon-irradiated samples. These studies indicate that whereas in fused quartz the damaged layer recovers completely, inα-quartz there is a residual amorphization even after annealing. A two-layer model is proposed which gives a reasonable simulation of the observedir properties.     

UV excitation spectra of thermoluminescence in quartz

Thermoluminescence was excited at 300 K in natural quartz crystals by monochromatic ultraviolet radiation. The excitation spectra of the main glow peaks were measured in the spectral region 1150–2000 Å. A strong excitation maximum appeared for all measured glow peaks in the region of high absorbance on the long wavelength tail of a sharp reflectance peak at 1275 Å. Some glow peaks showed excitation maxima also at photon energies smaller than the absorption edge of the material. The dependence of the TL intensities on the dose of the exciting radiation was investigated for various glow peaks and excitation wavelengths. A sublinear dependence was recorded for some peaks by excitation at 1275 Å, while the same peaks showed a strictly linear dependence up to relatively high radiation doses, when excited at 1600 Å.     

Assessing the impact of pulsed-irradiation procedures on the thermally transferred OSL signal in quartz

Thermally transferred optically stimulated luminescence (TT-OSL) dating protocols have been suggested as a means of extending the age range of luminescence dating. Several studies demonstrate that TT-OSL signals increase with large radiation doses (>2000 Gy) and yet, few studies report older TT-OSL ages (>400 Gy) in agreement with independent absolute age control. In one such study, agreement with independent chronology was only achieved for the old samples by implementing a pulsed-irradiation procedure. Pulsed-irradiation is suggested to compensate for dose rate dependent competition effects by dividing the laboratory irradiation into discrete irradiation steps interspersed with heat treatments. However, every inter-step heat treatment has the potential to anneal part of the TT-OSL dating signal. This study compares constant- and pulsed-irradiation TT-OSL protocols and investigates the degree of partial thermal annealing. The results suggest that almost all of the difference in outcome between constant- and pulsed-irradiation protocols can be explained by partial annealing of the TT-OSL signal rather than by competition effects. Partial annealing distorts the laboratory dose response curve but has no impact on the natural signal, resulting in unreliable equivalent dose estimates. This means that pulsed-irradiation procedures may not be viable for TT-OSL dating measurements. Future studies implementing pulsed-irradiation procedures should carefully consider the extent to which inter-step thermal treatments partially anneal the signal.     

Lifetime analysis of quasibound states in coupled quantum wells

A simple time-dependent model is presented to investigate lifetimes of the quasibound states in coupled quantum wells (CQWs). The transfer matrix approach is employed to discretize the conduction-band profile of the heterostructure and form a dispersion equation whose zeros correspond to the complex eigenenergies. Both the bound and quasibound states are extracted numerically in the complex plane by Newton's method. The lower and higher well subbands are found to have negative and positive energy shift, respectively, as following the no level crossing theorem. Besides, the decay rate of the quasibound state is approximately proportional to the absolute energy shift. The quasibound states, which have larger energy shift, have shorter lifetime and decay more quickly. Furthermore, the differences in lifetime between the quasibound states in CQWs can be easily realized as all the wave functions are specially adjusted to form the relative probability density distributions.     

Isothermal decay method for analysis of thermoluminescence: a new approach

A variant of the isothermal decay method to determine the trap activation energy E in thermoluminescence is put forward. The area under the phosphorescence curve recorded at different temperatures is employed to calculate E by re-arranging the original equations by Randall–Wilkins, Garlick–Gibson and May–Partridge. As an example, the proposed method is applied to calculate E for a real phosphor and compared with other well-established methods.     

The role of simulations in the study of thermoluminescence (TL)

The traffic of charge carriers in a luminescent material during its excitation by irradiation and during readout either in the measurement of thermoluminescence (TL) or optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) is governed by sets of coupled nonlinear differential equations. The analytical solution of these sets is usually not possible, and one can resort to one of two options. Some researchers preferred to make simplifying assumptions and thus got approximate solutions whereas others performed simulations by solving the simultaneous equations numerically. Each of these routes has its pitfalls. The simplifying assumptions, mainly the quasi-equilibrium assertion or the assumption that certain relations between the relevant parameters and functions hold, may be valid in certain ranges of the TL or OSL curve, and may cease to be valid, say at the high-temperature range in TL. Performing simulations using the numerical solution of the relevant set of equations may yield results which are accurate, but cannot be considered as being general because they depend on the specific choice of the parameters. Repeating the simulations with several sets of the physically plausible parameters would add credibility to the conclusions drawn. The combination of the two approaches is highly recommended, i.e, if similar results are found by approximations and simulations, the validity of the conclusions is strengthened. Evidently, the comparison of these theoretical results to experimental effects is essential. In the present work we consider the occurrence of unusually high and unusually low values of the activation energy and the effective frequency factor. In particular, we can simulate a recently discovered behavior of TL in LiF:Mg, Cu, P at the ultra-high dose range and get qualitatively the main elements of the experimentally found results.     

高功率二极管激光器寿命测试

 介绍了高功率激光二极管不同模式的失效机理，分析了激光二极管不同的寿命测试方法；在冷却水温20℃和实际工作温度下分别对封装的激光器进行了寿命测试。根据试验结果得出退化率，推算出准连续二极管激光器在水温20℃，电流90A，占空比为10%（500Hz，200μs）时，平均激光工作寿命为2.19×10⁹次脉冲；冷却水温35℃时，其平均激光工作寿命下降为1.65×10⁹次脉冲。由实验结果分析得出，高功率激光器封装工艺中的焊料沉积和多层焊接技术，以及工作环境温度是影响激光器可靠性和寿命的关键因素。     

α-Al2O3: Mn单晶的三维热释发光谱研究

测量了α-Al2O3: Mn单晶中子辐照前后的三维热释发光谱.观察到α-Al2O3: Mn:Mn单晶γ射线照射后测量的三维热释发光谱中，峰温在350℃波长为680nm处有一宽发光峰，这可能与Mn2+离子有关；波长为695nm峰温在170℃和350℃的线状光谱，叠加在680nm宽发光峰上，是Cr3+离子的发光谱线,其中可能有Mn4+离子的贡献.与纯α-Al2O3单晶的热释发光谱相比，掺入Mn杂质后，γ射线照射的三维热释发光谱中完全地抑制了波长为416nm的α-Al2O3的F心发光峰.经1017cm-2中子注量辐照和退火后，γ射线照射后测量的三维热释发光谱中，在150℃出现了波长为416和695nm的发光峰，以及在250℃波长为680和695nm的发光峰，其中695nm新发光峰的强度略超过了中子辐照前α-Al2O3:Mn在350℃波长为695nm的发光峰，说明中子辐照产生了大量浅陷阱能级和F心.然而，经1018cm-2中子注量辐照和退火后，γ射线照射后测量的三维热释发光谱中，出现了峰温150℃，190℃和250℃波长为520nm的Mn2+离子发光峰，以及300℃波长为680和695nm的Cr3+（或Mn4+）的发光峰，表明增高中子注量的辐照，产生了温度为190℃，250℃和300℃深陷阱能级和F心，并使Mn2+离子发光峰明显加强. 关键词： α-Al2O3:Mn 三维发光谱 缺陷结构 发光机理     

Depth of electron traps in silver halides by the thermoluminescence spectra method

The thermoluminescent emissions of AgCl and AgBr crystals have been investigated as excited at liquid N₂ temperature with UV light. The spectra of both halides were found to exhibit a single glow peak, with maxima at 140 and 124 ° K respectively. Analysis of the data yields an activation energy of 0.13 eV for AgCl and 0.096 for AgBr. The trapping centres are identified with Frenkel defects and evidence is obtained in favour of the carrier trap situation presupposed by the Mitchell and Mott model for the latent photographic image formation.     

Electron paramagnetic resonance and the thermoluminescence emission mechanism of the 280 °C peak in natural andalusite crystal

Samples of natural andalusite (Al₂SiO₅) crystal have been investigated in terms of thermoluminescence (TL) and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) measurements. The TL glow curves of samples previously annealed at 600 °C for 30 min and subsequently gamma-irradiated gave rise to four glow peaks at 150, 210, 280 and 350 °C. The EPR spectra of natural samples heat-treated at 600 °C for 30 min show signals at g=5.94 and 2.014 that do not change after gamma irradiation and thermal treatments. However, it was observed that the appearance of a paramagnetic center at g=1.882 for the samples annealed at 600 °C for 30 min followed gamma irradiation. This line was attributed to Ti³⁺ centers. The EPR signals observed at g=5.94 and 2.014 are due to Fe³⁺. Correlations between EPR and TL results of these crystals show that the EPR line at g=1.882 and the TL peak at 280 °C can be attributed to the same defect center.     

Growth and characteristics of some new varieties of coloured quartz single crystals

Abstract

Methods for the hydrothermal synthesis of four new coloured varieties of quartz have been developed. Two of these varieties are very rare in nature. They are a bi-coloured amethyst-citrine quartz (ametrine) and a phosphorous-bearing low-temperature pink quartz. The other two varieties have no natural counterparts. They are a pink-violet Ni-bearing quartz, and a Cu-bearing quartz which resembles aventurine. The principal conditions for producing these varieties of quartz single crystals are described.     

Effects of high-temperature annealing on ESR properties of solid solutions of garnet minerals

A garnet (G7) silicate mineral belonging to pyralspite subgroup was studied using the technique of electron spin resonance (ESR). This study shows that iron is present in G7 as isolated species as well as species coupled by dipolar interactions. The ESR data shows a gradual increase of cluster of Fe³⁺ ions accompanied by decrease of dipolar interactions and increase of possible exchange interactions at high temperature. The Fe²⁺→Fe³⁺ oxidation process occurs in the garnets as a function of annealing temperature. Thermoluminescence (TL) peaks at approximately 190 and 340 °C are observed in the irradiated G7 garnet. Investigations using the technique of ESR were carried out to identify the centers involved in the TL process.     

Experiments with single atoms in cavities and traps

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