AN AUTOMATED RESEARCH FACILITY FOR MEASURING THERMOLUMINESCENCE EMISSION-SPECTRA USING AN OPTICAL MULTICHANNEL ANALYZER

A facility for research into the mechanism of thermoluminescence (TL) is described. The facility comprises three units: an annealing oven, an irradiator, and a TL-emission spectrometer. Crystals or hot-pressed chips can be moved from and to the mentioned units by an automated sample changer. All units operate automatically and are controlled by a personal computer program. The spectrometer is based on a dispersive grating and an intensified diode array (512 active elements) and covers the 200-800-nm wavelength range. The wavelength resolution of the spectrometer is 6 nm when a 25-mum-wide entrance slit is used and 29 nm when a 1-mm-wide entrance slit is used. The sensitive spectrometer could measure emission spectra of CaSO4:Dy (TLD-200) irradiated at an absorbed dose as low as 3 mGy at a signal-to-noise ratio of 10:1 for LiF:Mg,Ti (TLD-100) this ratio was obtained at 75 mGy. A detailed description is given how measured data can be related to spectra predicted by a model, taking into account all system aberrations. Spectra of LiF:Mg,Ti (TLD-100) irradiated to an absorbed dose of 5 Gy are analyzed according to the Franck-Condon model for light emission. Two emission bands with peak energies of 3.01 and 2.60 eV at 463 K have been found.