Comparing the luminescence properties of ZnAl2O4 synthesized by citrate-nitrate auto-combustion and solid-state synthesis routes

Abstract

Zinc aluminate (ZnAl2O4) is an attractive material for various applications such as catalysis, optics and lasers. Although this material can also be used as an irradiation detector, there is little information in the literature regarding its use in dosimetric applications. Therefore, the aim of this work is to obtain ZnAl2O4-based ceramic materials in order to study their luminescent properties depending on morphology. To realize this goal, we used two synthesis methods involving various sintering temperature regimes to obtain ceramics with a given microstructure. As compared to ceramic samples obtained by citrate-nitrate synthesis, those obtained using the solid-state synthesis method were found to be morphologically more defective, resulting in higher thermoluminescence sensitivity. In a final step, we investigated the possibility of using the obtained ZnAl2O4 ceramics in an absorbed dose detector. The optimal obtained samples were found to have a linear thermoluminescence dependence over a wide absorbed dose range of 0.05–60 Gy. The results of this work testify to the prospects of applying undoped zinc aluminate as an ionizing irradiation detector.