Defect studies in quartz: Composite nature of the blue and UV emissions

Quartz is an extremely diffused natural luminescence dosimeter. Thanks to the presence of traps and luminescence centres, its TSL and OSL (Thermally and Optically Stimulated Luminescence) properties have been extensively exploited. Quartz is then used for archaeological and geological dating and is one of the most useful materials for accident dosimetry. Many luminescence emissions are known to be present in the OSL and TSL of quartz. Three main emission bands are always reported, as the red, blue and UV bands, centred at around 650, 470, and 360-380 nm, respectively. Although the assignment of the luminescence emissions to specific defect centres in quartz is still undefined, a thorough analysis of the radioluminescence emissions and their response to irradiation and thermal treatments turned out to be very useful in understanding many features. Specifically, the presence of the same emission bands in natural and synthetic quartz and their dependence on the presence of extrinsic impurities is a common characteristic. The main impurities involve Al ions substituting Si ones and charge compensated by nearby either alkali ions, H+, or a hole. The emission spectra dynamics evidenced in our experiment confirm the role of Al-related centres in the luminescence properties of quartz. From the measurements presented in this paper the composite nature of the "blue" emission is confirmed. Two bands labelled as A at 2.5 eV and B at 2.8 eV contribute to the emission in this region, their behaviour being different as a function of irradiation. More complex is the picture in the UV region, where, besides the already detected C and D bands at 3.4 eV and 3.9 eV, respectively, two further emissions have been detected at 3.1 eV and 3.7 eV. Despite both the 3.4 eV and the 3.7 eV bands are shown to be affected by thermal treatments, the annealing temperature dependence of their intensity is markedly different. In fact, whereas the C band intensity, at 3.4 eV, increases after annealing at 500 °C followed by a decrease at higher temperatures, the 3.7 eV intensity is strongly enhanced by annealing at temperature above 700°C and reaches its highest value after annealing at around 1000°C. In the light of these results a number of already known features of quartz emissions should be reconsidered