Dependence of heating rates of thermal activation on thermal activation characteristics of 110 °C TL peak of quartz: A simulation approach

Abstract

Abstract This work was undertaken to investigate heating rates effect of thermal activation on the thermal activation characteristic (TAC) by a way of numerical simulation of an existing model. This was done by monitoring charge distributions among trapping states (electron and hole traps), both immediately after thermal activation and after irradiation of test dose. Previously observed ‘early activation’ and ‘late activation’ of TACs have been numerically observed in this work by following the exact experimental procedures of varying heating rates of thermal activation that produced them. Indirect thermal transfer signal from high temperature-TL peak at the end of thermal activation was observed to also contribute to the sensitization in the TACs, apart from the popular pre-dose effect. This contribution to the TACs from indirect thermal transfer signal from high temperature-TL peak increases with heating rate utilised for thermal activation. Recombination rate of evicted electron from high temperature-TL peak with holes during the thermal activation resulted into (i) increased sensitization with heating rates of thermal activation and (ii) direct dependence of temperature at glow-peak maximum intensity ( T m ) of high temperature TL peak and heating rates of thermal activation on the peak position of the TACs peak. The impact of the electrons loss to recombination during the short irradiation increases with the heating rates of the thermal activation. The overall results have been employed to shed more light on the pre-dose phenomenon and its applications in dating.