Trap level spectroscopy of disordered materials using thermoluminescence: An application to aluminosilicate glass

Abstract

Abstract A method is presented for analyzing complex thermoluminescence (TL) glow curves from disordered materials using aluminosilicate glass as an example. The method is first described using simulated TL glow curves, firstly by assuming a Gaussian distribution of trap depths Et and a fixed frequency factor s, and secondly by assuming distributions of both Et and s. The method is able to reproduce the input distributions for both Et and s with a high degree of accuracy. The method is then applied to the measured TL from an aluminosilicate glass sample. A series of glow curves is recorded at different heating rates and the method is first applied to each glow curve separately, and Et and s distributions are obtained; four different trapping sites are revealed within the material, each with distributions in Et and s. Good self-consistency is obtained at each of the different heating rates. The lowest temperature TL peak shows signs of fading at the lowest heating rates used. The method is then applied to a “pseudo” TL curve consisting of the sum of all individual glow curves obtained at the different heating rates as a simple way to fit all curves recorded at the different heating rates simultaneously. The results obtained are consistent with those obtained by fitting the glow curves individually.