LAUSR

Abstract Thermoluminescence (TL) spectra of undoped and rare earth doped magnesium orthosilicate, Mg2SiO4: RE3+ (RE = Yb, Tm, Er, Dy, Tb, Eu, Sm, Nd, Pr, Ce) samples, were recorded from room temperature to 450 °C. The rare earth dopants mostly suppress signals from the host material. The glow peak temperatures are a function of rare earth size relative to the magnesium ions. The patterns differ between glow peaks, and this is interpreted as evidence for rare earth ions on the two possible magnesium lattice sites. Further, the peak TL temperatures can vary between the transition wavelengths of the same dopant, which is consistent with close association of the rare earth and charge trapping sites. Overall, this large body of spectrally resolved thermoluminescence data indicate systematic changes with the size of the dopants. Powder formation introduces lattice damage which lowers the peak temperatures relative to single crystals, and inherent temperature sensitive spectral complexity of the data emphasis that energy analyses of polychromatic signals are inappropriate.