Investigation on trap distribution and photoelectronic effect due to UV,IR and visible light excitation in self-activated zns crystals

Photoelectronic effects in IR sensitive ZnS crystals are found for IR, UV and visible light excitations. The transient rise characteristic of UV excited photoluminescence (UPL) saturates faster than UV produced photoconductivity (UPC). The UPC shows a typical S-shaped rise curve for any 365 run excitation irradiance and temperature. Simultaneously measured transient behaviors of IR induced photoconductivity (INP) and IR stimulated luminescence (STL) have a strong IR excitation intensity dependence for λ_IR = 2.5?4.6 microm. A unique phenomenon, quick rise followed by quick decay during the initial 20 msec, is found in INP before reaching final maximum but is not observed in STL. During UV steady irradiation, additional photoconductivity and luminescence are quickly induced by an abrupt IR excitation of 2.5 microm. Then, the photoconductivity reaches a new steady state level below UPC steady state. However, the luminescence sets the same UPL steady state level. This means that photoconductivity exhibits an IR optical quenching but not stimulation, while neither optical quenching nor stimulation is found in luminescence. It is also possible to quench the UPC response with visible light excitation at 570 nm. These observations support the previously reported discussion that IR absorbing impurity centers and shallow traps, including recombination (or luminescence) centers must be involved in IR stimulable ZnS crystals. They also indicate the presence of deep trap centers for E_T ≈ 2.18 eV, which have a strong role in slow UPC rise.