Ion-induced luminescence of silica glasses

We have performed in situ analysis of ion-induced luminescence of silica glasses in terms of incident ion energy and fluence, to investigate the origin of the luminescence and the influence of implanted deuterium and helium ions. The luminescence spectra of SiO2 glasses induced by D+ and He+ irradiation showed a broad band centered at around 450 nm. By comparing with TRIM calculations, we can conclude that the luminescence is caused by electron excitation effects of implanted ions. In the early stage of the irradiation, most of the luminescence comes from intrinsic defect centers, With increasing ion fluence, the luminescence intensity increased, taking maximum and then decreased, This indicates that the first increase is attributed to the increase of newly produced defect centers by atomic displacements, while the decrease is probably owing to the growth and clustering of the defects and/or precipitation of Si clusters, When the fluence is translated to dpa, changes of the luminescence intensity between D+ irradiation and He+ are very similar, This result also supports that the additional luminescence centers are produced by atomic displacements, The luminescence centers are very likely oxygen vacancy or oxygen deficiency related ones but OH has some role.