Thermoluminescence kinetic study of binary lead-silicate glasses

This paper describes a detailed experimental study of the thermoluminescence (TL) properties of four binary lead-silicate glasses, with PbO concentrations ranging from 32% to 62% in mole percent. The TL glow peaks between room temperature and 300 °C were analyzed using a systematic thermal cleaning technique. The Tmax–Tstop and E–Tstop methods of analysis were used to identify the number of peaks under the glow curves, and to obtain the activation energy E for each TL trap. A computerized glow curve fitting analysis is used to fit the experimental data to four first-order peaks with maxima at temperatures of 54, 80, 110 and 210 °C, as measured with a heating rate of 2 °C/s. The kinetic parameters of the glow-peak at 210 °C were confirmed by using phosphorescence decay methods of analysis. The TL traps associated with the low-temperature TL peak at 54 °C are found to depend strongly on the PbO concentration of the samples, while the higher-temperature TL peaks show a behavior independent of the PbO concentration. The activation energy E and frequency factor s of the low-temperature TL trap associated with the peak at 54 °C are consistent with a trap involving a delocalized transition through the conduction band. However, the activation energies and frequency factors for the higher-temperature TL traps are consistent with traps involving localized transitions via an excited state below the conduction band. The data suggest that these higher-temperature TL traps are associated with the common silicate matrix in these binary silicate glasses.