OSL from BeO ceramics: new observations from an old material

In BeO ceramics, exposed to ionizing radiation, an intense OSL signal was observed. The properties of the signal and its behavior under various experimental conditions were investigated. It was found that the OSL signal is a composite signal and exhibits strong thermal quenching. The quenching energy was estimated as 0.5 eV. The excitation spectrum of the OSL signal was obtained as a broad peak in the region 420–550 nm with maximum around 435 nm. The possible correlation between the OSL signal and the peaks in the TL glow curve was also examined. It was interesting to observe that the highly light sensitive TL peak near 220°C does not contribute to the OSL signal. The OSL signal was found to originate from a trap near 340°C.

To check the possibility of using the material for radiation dosimetry the dose response and thermal stability of the OSL signal were also investigated. The dose response was found to be quite linear up to 10 Gy. The thermal activation energy of the OSL trap was determined as 1.7 eV using isothermal annealing and heating rate methods thus proving the suitability for dosimetry.