Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B 276 (2012) 19–24

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Thermoluminescence characteristics of high gamma dose irradiated natural quartz

Mohan Singh ⇑, Navjeet Kaur, Lakhwant SinghDepartment of Physics, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, Punjab 143005, India

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 24 October 2011Received in revised form 6 January 2012Available online 15 January 2012

Keywords:Natural quartzGamma radiationThermoluminescenceKinetic parameters

0168-583X/$ - see front matter � 2012 Elsevier B.V.doi:10.1016/j.nimb.2012.01.007

⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 99144 90280.E-mail address: mohansinghphysics@gmail.com (M

a b s t r a c t

The present investigation elaborates the thermoluminescence characteristics of colourless natural quartzirradiated with high dose (30–280 kGy) of gamma radiation from a 60Co source. Two thermolumines-cence glow peaks in the temperature ranges of 491–499 K and 634–666 K were observed in irradiatedquartz. Colour transitions, dose response on the thermoluminescence peak intensity, shift in peak tem-perature and defect production were studied. The kinetic parameters (activation energy, order of kinetics,frequency factor, etc.) of natural quartz have also been determined.

� 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Natural minerals play an important and emerging role in mod-ern science and technology. Most of these exhibit thermolumines-cence (TL) characteristics and facilitate to understand variousdamage and safety processes during irradiation accidents. Amongthese minerals, quartz is one of the most important, inexpensiveand abundant minerals that have many tremendous advantagesfrom radiation research, environmental and clinical radiologicalapplications to other industrial and commercial areas, e.g. artificialcolouration [1–15]. When the irradiated grains of this mineral areheated from room temperature to some higher temperature, itexhibits a number of different glow curves. These glow curves de-pend upon many factors such as chemical forms, types and concen-tration of impurities and defects, geological origin, irradiation,sensitisation and other experimental conditions [10–31]. Studieson various point defects in quartz have been the subject of consid-erable scientific interest [1,4,6,8,9,11–13,16,17,20–24,26,28,29,31–60]. Most of the impurity-related point defects are randomly dis-tributed in the crystal and can be modified by irradiating thequartz with different ionising radiation. A number of TL glow peaksin the temperature range of 333–753 K are reported by manyauthors for a variety of quartz [5,9,16,19,31,61,62]. According tothese authors, high temperature TL peaks are more stable afterirradiation as compared to low temperature peaks and the latterdecay faster because of their short lifetimes. Sawakuchi and Okuno[5] pointed out that the growth of TL glow peaks with dose is al-most similar up to 30 kGy of gamma dose.

All rights reserved.

. Singh).

While natural quartz shows a range of capabilities, the detailedirradiation response, defect production and distribution, and ther-moluminescence mechanism are not yet completely understood. Itis difficult to compare the published literature of TL characterisa-tion because the TL measurements on quartz from different origins,conditions and impurities cannot be consistent with each other.Therefore, the TL characteristics and defect production of highgamma dose (30–280 kGy) irradiated natural quartz have beenstudied in the present work. Trapping parameters of the deconvo-luted peaks have also been studied for better understanding of theTL phenomenon.

2. Experimental procedures

For the present investigation, colourless natural quartz of Indianorigin was chosen. The sample of grain sizes below 70–100 lm wasprepared after suitable grinding and crushing.

The elemental analysis (Table 1) of the sample was done usingthe Epsilon-5 EDXRF spectrometer from advanced instrumentationcentre, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) New Delhi, India.

XRD diffractogram (Fig. 1) of the quartz sample (a = 4.91303 ±0.00089; b = 4.91303 ± 0.00000; c = 5.40229 ± 0.00248; a = b =90�; c = 120�; v = 112.929 Å3) was taken at the room temperaturein a wide range of Bragg angle (10�–90�) using XRD-7000 SHIMA-DZU X-ray diffractometer (Cu, k = 1.54434; scanning rate: 2�/min)installed at Department of Physics, Guru Nanak Dev University,Amritsar.

In order to eliminate the effect of natural radiations and to re-move any inherent or residual information, the sieved pulverisedquartz sample was heated continuously up to 673 K in a mufflefurnace for 1 h and then gradually cooled to room temperature.In order to evaluate the TL response, these annealed samples were

Table 1Qualitatively elements distribution in quartz samplemeasured by EDX (standard deviation ±2%).

Elements Conc. Unit

Si 56.37 %Fe 16.67 %Al 15.48 %Mn 10.01 %Ca 0.77 %Mg 0.32 %K 1570.32 ppmYb 802.44 ppmY 701.33 ppmW 320.00 ppmTi 246.00 ppmGe 43.14 ppmSn 29.75 ppmZr 22.68 ppmCu 20.20 ppmPb 19.00 ppm

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 800

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000

8000

9000

10000

11000

12000

20.9

26.7

36.6439.5442.52

50.22

54.9460.18

67.868.2268.4 75.7277.7479.9481.5

(1 3

0)

(1 2

-3)

(2 2

0)

(0 3

2)

(3 0

1)

(2 0

3)

(1 2

-2)(1

2 -1

)

(2 0

2)

(1 1

-2)

(2 0

0)

(1 0

2)

(1 1

0)

(1 0

1)

(1 0

0)

Inte

nsit

y(A

U)

2 theta

Fig. 1. XRD pattern of natural quartz.

4.0x108

6.0x108

8.0x108

1.0x109

1.2x109

1.4x109

30 kGy40 kGy70 kGy170 kGy280 kGy

Inte

nsit

y (a

.u.)

20 M. Singh et al. / Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B 276 (2012) 19–24

divided into different groups and each group was irradiated withc-radiations (dose ranges from 30 to 280 kGy) using 60Co sourcegamma chamber at room temperature from Bhabha AtomicResearch Centre (BARC) Mumbai, India. The dose rate of the sourcewas 0.99 kGy/h and the chamber was calibrated by Standard Frickedosimetry and verified by alanine-EPR dosimetry system.

TL measurements on these irradiated quartz samples were per-formed (The time interval between irradiation and TL reading wasabout 7–8 days) using Harshaw TLD reader (Model 3500) at IUAC,New Delhi, India in a nitrogen atmosphere. For each TL measure-ment, 5.0 ± 0.2 mg of the sample was used. The sample was heatedfrom room temperature to 673 K with linear heating rate of 5 K/s.Three replicas of the each irradiated sample were used to presentthe average data.

300 350 400 450 500 550 600 650 7000.0

2.0x108

Temperature (K)

Fig. 2. Observed TL glow curves of natural quartz irradiated with gamma radiationof different doses.

3. Results and discussion

Qualitative EDX analysis (Table 1) indicates that the naturalquartz used in the present investigation consists mainly of siliconbearing mineral and with some amount of iron, aluminium, man-ganese, calcium, potassium, magnesium and many other elementsas impurities. The XRD pattern of the present quartz is presented inFig. 1. The sample correspondence with the ICDD database of PDF

number (PDF#85–0865). The (hkl) values of most prominentpeaks and the corresponding 2h-values are shown in the pattern.The lattice parameters of the unit cell are a = 4.91322 ± 0.01096;b = 4.91322 ± 0.00000; c = 5.46765 ± 0.01522; a = b = 90�; c =120�; v = 114.305 Å3.

The TL glow curves of ‘‘as received’’ quartz samples (prean-nealed at 673 K/1 h) irradiated with gamma radiation of differentdoses (30, 40, 70, 170 and 280 kGy) are characterised by two dis-tinct peaks having simple structure named as peaks I and II at tem-perature range of approximately 491–499 and 634–666 Krespectively (Fig. 2).

From the physical examination, the original colour of the quartzbecame gray to black after the gamma irradiation and, after TLheating; it became greenish-yellow to brown with the increase ofthe irradiation doses. These transitions can be linked to the de-crease of the luminescence peak around 493 K with the increaseof the gamma dose and might be related with the different colourcentres produced. The probable explanation is that the blue lumi-nescence of quartz at around 493 K is absorbed by the yellowish tobrownish colours that are developed during the heating. Above633 K, all colour centres produced by irradiation and heating aredestroyed and we observed the increase of the luminescence withthe increase of the dose. Hydrous components play an importantrole for the colour transition and can hamper the formation ofsmoky and amethyst colour centres when quartz is subjected toirradiation. The degree of darkening also depends upon the growthconditions, e.g. growth temperature. The quartz grown at relativelyhigh temperature easily saturated in smoky colour only with asmall dose of ionising radiation than the quartz grown at lowertemperature.

The observed glow peaks correspond to the different traps inthe forbidden band gap regions of the crystal. For two observedemissions at peak temperatures of 491–499 and 634–666 K, theformer corresponding to the 493–523 K and the latter correspond-ing to the 623–648 K peaks in the literature. It is observed that theTL intensity of peaks I and II behave differently with excitationdose because gamma radiation might affects each of the chargetraps differently. Some low temperature TL peaks (e.g. in the tem-perature range of 373–383 K) as reported by many authors are ab-sent in our present quartz. This disappearance may be due to theshort lifetime of these peaks. These low temperature peaks decayvery fast due to the lost of trapping centres before TL readingdue to fading (7–8 days in the present case). Thermal and non-

Fig. 4. Peak temperature of observed glow peaks (I and II) for quartz as a function ofgamma dose.

[AlSiO4/M+]0

γ

[AlSiO4/h+]0M+

Mi

[AlSiO4]-

h+

M+

e-

[AlSiO4]-

h+

γ

γ

e-

Fig. 5. Schematic diagram of Al related defects.

M. Singh et al. / Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B 276 (2012) 19–24 21

thermal are the two main ways of fading of the TL signal. The for-mer way is a function of trap depth and does not occur at highertemperatures TL curve and the latter typically occurs over the firstfew hours or days only and may affects peaks at ambient temper-atures. The fading of the glow peak occurring at higher tempera-ture is smaller than of those at lower temperatures. So, theobserved high temperature TL peaks (peak II) are more stable ascompared to low temperature glow peaks (peak I).

Fig. 3 shows the variation of peak maximum intensity withgamma dose for observed peaks (I and II). The peak maximumintensity for both the observed peaks varies in different mannerwith gamma dose. The maximum intensity of peak II is relativelyhigh as compared to that of the peak I. Peak I decreases abruptlywhen the gamma dose increases from 30 to 280 kGy and becomenegligible at higher doses. This might be due to the number ofempty traps that exponentially destroyed during irradiation, i.e.by the phenomenon of destruction and filling of different traps.The intensity of the peak II increases as dose increases from 30to 70 kGy and then the intensity decreases for 170 kGy dose andthen again increases as dose rise to 280 kGy. Our work supportthe hypothesis that the behaviour of the TL peaks with dose ismainly controlled by the distinct recombination centres and radia-tion affects each of the charge traps individually. This may be dueto the fact that at high gamma dose, the number of trapped chargecarriers is high as compared to empty traps. With increase in gam-ma dose, more charge traps corresponding to peak I are destroyedand TL intensity is ultimately decays for gamma doses higher than70 kGy.

The glow curves obtained at different gamma doses show theeffect of increasing excitation dose on the peak positions. Peak Itemperature (i.e. 499 K for 30 kGy) decreases with increasing doseand reaches to a minimum at 491 K for 40 and 70 kGy and thenagain increases (496 K) as the dose increases to 170 kGy (Fig. 4).Peak I disappear as the dose reached to 280 kGy. Peak II tempera-ture increases (634–666 K) as gamma dose increases from 30 to280 kGy (Fig. 4). It has been reported that in reality the peak isof complex nature consisting of multiple glow peaks with differentdose behaviour. Ogundare et al. [7] reported on this type of tem-perature shift towards higher temperature with increasing dose.They found that if the high temperature components of glow peakare lower in intensity at small doses and increases as dose in-creases, then such type of shift is possible. Similarly in our presentinvestigation, the higher temperature components grow faster asthe dose increases than the lower-temperature components, and

0 50 100 150 200 250 3000.0

5.0x107

1.0x108

1.5x108

2.0x108

2.5x108

3.0x108

6x108

7x108

8x108

9x108

1x109

1x109

1x109

1x109

1x109

Inte

nsit

y (a

.u.)

Dose (KGy)

Peak I

Peak II

Inte

nsit

y (a

.u.)

Fig. 3. Growth (maximum intensity) of observed glow peaks (I and II) for quartz asa function of gamma dose.

300 350 400 450 500 550 600 650 700

0.00

1.50x108

3.00x108

4.50x108

6.00x108

7.50x108

9.00x108

ΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟ

ΟΟΟΟΟΟ

ΟΟΟΟ

ΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟ

ΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟ

ΟΟΟΟΟΟΟ

ΟΟΟΟΟΟ

ΟΟΟΟ

ΟΟΟΟΟΟ

ΟΟΟΟ

ΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟ

ΟΟΟΟΟ

ΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟΟ

11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

111111111

11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111122222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222

22222222

22222

2222222

22222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222223333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333

333333333333333

333333333

3333333

3333333

3333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333344444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444

444444444444444

4444444

444444

4444

444444

444444444444444444444444444444444

44444444444

444444444444444

32

1

Inte

nsit

y (a

.u.)

Temperature (K)

Fig. 6. Comparison between experimental (sss) and theoretically fitted (—) TLglow curve of natural quartz for 30 kGy of gamma dose. Deconvoluted fitted glowcurves 1–4 are also shown.

Table 2Trapping parameters of TL glow peaks of gamma irradiated natural quartz.

Dose (kGy) Peak Tm (K) Form factor (lg) Activation energy E (eV) Frequency factor s (s�1) Figure of merit (FOM) (%)

Es Ed Ex Eavg

30 1 491 0.43 1.46 1.45 1.47 1.46 4.4 � 1014 0.402 511 0.43 1.14 1.18 1.17 1.16 7.2 � 1010

3 550 0.43 0.70 0.78 0.74 0.74 9.8 � 105

4 632 0.42 0.81 0.86 0.84 0.84 7.0 � 105

40 1 487 0.40 1.00 0.99 1.01 1.00 5.4 � 109 0.332 513 0.42 0.93 0.96 0.95 0.95 5.1 � 108

3 552 0.43 0.81 0.86 0.84 0.84 6.4 � 106

4 623 0.40 1.52 1.46 1.51 1.50 2.6 � 1011

70 1 479 0.42 0.75 0.80 0.78 0.78 8.5 � 106 0.532 482 0.42 0.95 0.98 0.97 0.97 2.6 � 109

3 576 0.42 1.1 1.11 1.12 1.11 1.4 � 109

4 629 0.42 1.67 1.67 1.68 1.67 6.6 � 1012

170 1 488 0.42 0.70 0.74 0.72 0.72 4.9 � 106 0.212 598 0.44 1.20 1.27 1.24 1.24 7.3 � 109

3 645 0.42 1.77 1.76 1.78 1.77 1.3 � 1013

280 1 487 0.42 0.80 0.83 0.82 0.82 6.0 � 107 0.222 591 0.43 1.20 1.20 1.20 1.20 3.3 � 109

3 650 0.40 1.72 1.59 1.68 1.66 1.7 � 1012

22 M. Singh et al. / Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B 276 (2012) 19–24

thus the peaks shift towards higher temperature. Therefore, it isclear from the peak temperature transition for both glow peaksthat the gamma radiation influences each of the defect centres ina different manner. However, the studies related to the centres be-long to different emissions and effects of structural heterogeneityare still under interest and more techniques associated with thismust correlate to give better conclusions.

The quartz crystal contains a number of point defects eitherintrinsic or due to impurities [11]. These defects play an importantrole in TL phenomenon and became a subject of great interest[1,4,6,8,9,11–13,16,17,20–24,26,28,29,31–60]. The intensity of dif-ferent defects centres depends on various parameters like crystalgrowth, temperature, irradiation, etc. Many of the intrinsic defectsgenerated by gamma irradiation are the precursors for metastable(or unstable) defects and serve as electron traps or recombinationcentres. Both Si and O atoms displace from their crystalline posi-tion giving rise to vacancies (e.g. diamagnetic O vacancy centreand paramagnetic E0 (E01, E02 and E03) centres) and interstitials[34,35,39,41,54]. The E01 centre (trapping or capturing a hole byneutral O vacancy) is present only in quartz containing alkali ions.Irradiation can produce E01 centre even in the absence of O vacan-cies. The E02 and E04 centres consist of a hydrogen atom within anO vacancy. Other O deficient centres are the E001 (E001, E002 and E003),which are also present only in quartz containing alkali ions. Irradi-ated crystalline quartz also includes Non-Bridging Oxygen HoleCentres (NBOHC) and Peroxy Radicals (POR) as O excess centres[52]. Quartz also include Si vacancy hole centres and need a com-plementary Si vacancy to exist. When two O atoms related to a Sivacancy are stabilized by an Al3+ ion in the neighbouring tetrahe-dron, O2

3� and O2

� centres are created. This Si vacancy can alsohost three or four H ions creating H3O4 and H4O4.

Quartz takes many impurities (Table 1) during crystal growthwhich form impurity related defects. Gamma irradiation modifiesthese existing defects and produces new defects [41]. The twomain defect centres are known, i.e. by the elemental (Al, Ge, Ti, Pand Fe) substitution for Si and in addition to the monovalent sub-stitutional elements, there are small interstitial ions (mainly Naand H), when freed by irradiation move along the c-axis channels.Among many substitutional ions, Trivalent Aluminium is the mostdominant defect centre in quartz that substitutionally replaces Si4+

and requires additional monovalent positive charge to compensatethe replaced charge. This compensation is generally achieved by

monovalent alkalis (M+) like Na+, K+ or H+, by Ag+ or Cu+ or inter-stitial H+ ion and trapped holes. This process gives rise to differentAl-related centres such as [AlSiO4/M+]0, [AlSiO4/H+]0 and [AlSiO4]0,where AlSi indicates the replacement of Al by Si and M+ representsthe monovalent +ve ion [31,35,38,48]. The [AlSiO4/M+]0 centresconsist of an Al3+ ion with an adjacent interstitial alkali ion inthe c-axis channel. The AlM+ defect centres are the precursors forthe formation of Alhole centres and AlOH centres formed duringgamma irradiation. The AlOH centre is more stable than AlM centreand latter is more easily dissociated by irradiation and transformedinto Alhole centres. The [AlSiO4/H+]0 is formed by an interstitial pro-ton bonded to an oxygen ion (e.g. OH�) adjacent to a substitutionalaluminium. The [AlSiO4]0 centres consists of a hole immobilised ina non-bonding p orbital of an oxygen ion located adjacent to thesubstitutional aluminium [32]. Under high gamma dose irradia-tion, the [AlSiO4/M+]0 centre dissociate into [AlSiO4/h+]0, M+ andan electron. With an electron capture, the M+ becomes neutral atan interstitial position Mi. With sufficient thermal activation, [Al-SiO4/h+]0 centre transforms to [AlSiO4]�with the removal of an elec-tron hole (h+). The [AlSiO4]� centre formed with thermal activatedmigration of electron hole (h+) or when [AlSiO4/h+]0 centre com-bines with electrons. After capturing one M+, [AlSiO4]� centrescome back to [AlSiO4/M+]0, or can combine with one electron holeto create [AlSiO4/h+]0 centres. The gamma radiation transformsthe [AlSiO4]� centres to [AlSiO4/h+]0 and also ionises Mi by removingelectron. For conservation of the number of aluminium and chargecompensator atoms, the sum of [AlSiO4]� and [AlSiO4/h+]0 centresmust be equal to the sum of the M+ and Mi. For charge conserva-tion, the sum of [AlSiO4]� centres and e- must be equal to M+ andh+ [1,4,6,9,12,16,23,31]. For more clarity, the Al related defectsare presented in Fig. 5.

The centres related to Fe3+ are similar to the Al3+ centres([FeSiO4/M+]0, [FeSiO4/H+]0 and [FeSiO4]0), but iron can also bepresent in quartz as Fe2+ or Fe4+ [13,41,45,47]. Germanium isalso found in our quartz (Table 1), so [GeSiO4]� centre mightbe formed by electron trapping at the diamagnetic precursor[GeSiO4]0. It is unstable above 20 �C of temperature and decaysto the stable [GeSiO4/M+]0 centre [35,41,42]. In the presentquartz, titanium impurity is also present, then [TiSiO4]0 may bethe diamagnetic precursor of [TiSiO4]�. Other possible Ti relatedcentres are [TiSiO4/Li+]0, [TiSiO4/Na+]0, [TiSiO4/K+]0 [TiSiO4/H]0,[TiSiO4/h+]+, etc. [13,35,41].

M. Singh et al. / Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B 276 (2012) 19–24 23

The OH� groups at the Al site are linked not only to the simpleAl in the [AlSiO4/h+]0, but also to the additional M+ ions present. TheH+ ions can also enter a Si vacancy form H3O4 and H4O4 and duringirradiation these centres capture a hole and form [H3O4]0 and[H4O4]+ centres, respectively [36]. The authors are working onthe defects related to other impurities present in the quartz.

Trapping parameters (activation energy, order of kinetics andfrequency factor, etc.) play an important role for the deeper under-standing of the TL phenomenon [63]. Therefore, the GCD curve fit-ting was done using the GlowFit software [64] for first orderkinetics. The order of kinetics and activation energies of observedTL peaks were calculated using Chen’s empirical formulae[2,65,66]. To determine the order of kinetics (b), the form factor(lg) was calculated using the formula

lg ¼ ðT2 � TmÞ=ðT2 � T1Þ ð1Þ

where, Tm is the temperature corresponding to the maximum inten-sity, T1 and T2 are the temperatures corresponding to the half of theintensities on either side of the maximum. The observed form factorranges from 0.40 to 0.44 is close to 0.42 which indicates the first or-der kinetics [2,66].

The trap depth or the thermal energy can be calculated usingthe following equation

Ea ¼ caðKT2m=aÞ � bað2KTmÞ ð2Þ

a ¼ s; d;xs ¼ Tm � T1; d ¼ T2 � Tm; x ¼ T2 � T1

cs ¼ 1:51þ 3:0ðlg � 0:42Þ; cd ¼ 0:976þ 7:3ðlg � 0:42Þ;cx ¼ 2:52þ 10:2ðlg � 0:42Þbs ¼ 1:58þ 4:2ðlg � 0:42Þ; bd ¼ 0; bx ¼ 1:

The frequency factor (s) [67] is obtained from the followingrelation

bE

KT2m

¼ s expð� E

KT2m

Þ½1þ ðb� 1ÞDm� ð3Þ

where, b is the linear heating rate and b is the order of kinetics.All the TL glow curves have been fitted by maximum four peaks

system. Experimental and theoretically fitted TL glow curves ofnatural quartz for 30 KGy of gamma dose are shown in Fig. 6.The parameter describing the quality of fitting, called figure ofmerit (FOM) which ranges between 0.21 and 0.53 for the theoret-ically fitted curves is calculated as [64]:

FOM½%� ¼P

ijyi � yðxiÞjPiyi

� 100% ð4Þ

where yi is the content of the channel i and y(xi) is the value of fit-ting function in the centre of channel i. This indicates that theexperimental and theoretically fitted curves are in good agreement.The relevant trapping parameters and figure of merit (FOM) ob-tained for the deconvoluted glow peaks are presented in Table 2.

4. Conclusions

The analysis of our work reveals that the dose behaviour of theTL peaks is mainly controlled by the distinct recombination centresand thus radiation affects each of the charge traps individually. It isconcluded that the shift in glow peaks with dose is due to the com-plex nature of multiple glow peaks. The studies related to the dif-ferent defect centres are still under interest and moreinvestigations are required to give better conclusions which facili-tate the use of quartz in various applications.

Acknowledgments

One of the authors (M. Singh) is thankful to the Council ofScientific and Industrial Research (CSIR, India) for Research Asso-ciateship. Dr. S. P. Lochab (IUAC), New Delhi, India, is gratefullyacknowledge for TL facility.

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