The effects of pre-irradiation heat treatment and heating rate on the thermoluminescence glow peaks of natural CaF2

Abstract

In this article, we have investigated the effects of pre-irradiation heat treatments on the thermoluminescence (TL) glow peaks of natural fluorite (CaF2) collected from the central Anatolia region of Turkey. A typical TL glow curve of phosphor consists of four clear glow peaks with maximum intensities occurring at temperatures around 100 °C, 120 °C, 190 °C and 290 °C for a sample irradiated to a dose of 48 Gy and readout at a heating rate of 1 °C/s. It was observed that the intensities of all the TL glow peaks are strongly sensitive to annealing temperatures and durations. Annealing at 450 °C for 15 min was found to be the best for reproducibility of experimental results. The dose–responses of individual TL peaks of this material were also examined after annealing at 450 °C for 15 min by β-irradiation to doses between 0.04 Gy and ≈10.4 kGy. It was observed that the total area and peak heights of all glow peaks showed similar trends with increasing radiation dose; first, they increased linearly up to ≈50 Gy and then saturation effects began above this dose value. The effect of heating rate on the TL glow peaks of the mineral was also studied and it was observed that the intensities of glow peaks are differently affected with variation in heating rate.