Thermoluminescence of calcium fluoride doped with neodymium

Abstract

Thermoluminescence (TL) and radioluminescence (RL) spectra have been recorded from a set of calcium flouride samples doped with Neodymium. The dopant levels used were 1.0, 0.1 and 0.0130 and 400-degrees-C, with spectra being taken both prior to heat treatments, and after heating to 500-degrees-C for one hour and cooling at different rates. For the RL, each sample gave a UV/blue emission band near 300 nm which decreased with increasing Nd concentration. During thermoluminescence the Nd is the main recombination centre and shows characteristic line emission. However the spectra vary with concentration and thermal treatments. Models for the changes involve Nd defect clustering with non-radiative decay paths. At high temperature the TL spectra include other emission bands attributed to relaxed excition decay.