The red thermoluminescence of quartz: 3-D spectral measurements

摘要

As part of a general study of the thermoluminescence (TL) of quartz, we have examined the 3-D spectra of samples of quartz extracted from a variety of sediments. Blue emission at about 2.6 eV/475 nm, which is the photon energy region commonly used in luminescence dating, seems ubiquitous; Significant emission in the red, similar to 1.9 eV/ 650 nm, has been found at most glow temperatures in all of our samples of Australian quartz sediments, and it is to this that particular attention is paid in the present work. A limited selection of samples from other countries has also been included. The ratio of the intensities of the red and blue emissions varies widely among samples. We have not found any evidence of a correlation between this ratio, nor the intensity of the red emission, with trace element concentration, including that of Al for which a correlation has been previously observed. In the context of luminescence dating, all samples have been examined to see whether they have a rapidly bleaching red component in a similar sense to the well-known 305 degrees C/2.95 eV/420 nm peak in quartz: some samples have such a component-some do not. A suggestive parallelism is found between the blue and red spectra, in that there are "slowly bleaching" and "rapidly bleaching" components at similar temperatures in the both red and the blue. However, there is no red component associated with the 110 degrees C peak used in pre-dose dating. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. [References: 40]