automobile will need an understanding of the basic principles of mechanics, materials, and aerodynamics, so too should the budding researcher into luminescence dosimetry have at hand a similar understanding of the basics of electronic processes in solids, particularly the kinetics of charge generation and storage, stimulation, and recombination. Armed with this “tool-box” the reader can more fully appreciate the experimental phenomena described in Part II.
Part II discusses several real examples of the fundamentals outlined in Part I. The intent is to illustrate how the principles developed in Part I have been used in experiments to measure, understand, and exploit the properties of luminescence materials, especially as they relate to radiation dosimetry. To learn from the wisdom of Albert Einstein, knowing the luminescence properties of a material is one thing, but real progress is made only when we understand them. The author’s hope is that the reader can use the items in the “tool-box” and apply them to the properties of real materials in order to gain that understanding, and perhaps lead to greater creativity and innovation. As a caveat, however, the reader may be wise to recall the words of Prussian Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke, which the author paraphrases as few theories survive first contact with an experiment.
Acknowledgments
The author gratefully acknowledges the assistance of many colleagues in reading certain chapters and sections of the text, correcting mistakes, and making very positive suggestions. Also acknowledged are those who provided example data sets for use on the accompanying web site for reader analysis. Specific thanks go to Adrie Bos, Mayank Jain, Vasilis Pagonis, Nigel Poolton, Peter Townsend, Sergey Sholom, and Eduardo Yukihara, for their unfailing assistance in reading parts of the text and providing vital feedback to the author. Any remaining errors are the author’s own. Special thanks, however, go to my friend and long-time colleague, Sergey Sholom, for not only reading multiple sections of the book, but also in answering my persistent calls for original data for inclusion in the book and for uploading to the web site for use in the Exercises and for analysis by the readers. I will remain eternally grateful.
Further thanks are due to the many contributors of data and figures for use in the book, including, again, Adrie Bos, Vasilis Pagonis, Nigel Poolton, and Sergey Sholom, plus Mark Akselrod, Ramona Gaza, Guerda Massilon, Kahli Remy, and Hannes Stadmann. I also thank my many collaborators throughout my career from whom I have learned so much and who have guided me on my own stumbling path through the topic. Thanks are also due to the editorial staff at Wiley for their professional guidance and assistance. Finally, I thank my many brilliant students who over the years have also taught me so much at the same time as I, hopefully, have taught them. Teaching is a two-way process, and I have loved every minute of it. I hope this book does them all justice.
Disclaimer
Reference to commercial products does not imply or represent endorsement of those products on the part of the author. It is noted that the author’s research has been funded at various points in his career by Landauer Inc. (USA) and Chiyoda Technol Corporation (Japan).
About the Companion Website
This book is accompanied by a companion website.
www.wiley.com/go/mckeever/luminescence-measurements
This website includes:
Exercises
Figures
Notes
Part I Theory, Models, and Simulations
When … simulation and approximation yield similar results, the validity of the conclusions is strengthened.
– R. Chen and V. Pagonis 2014
1 Introduction
I consider then, that generally speaking, to render a reason of an effect or Phaenomenon, is to deduce it from something else in Nature more known than it self, and that consequently there may be divers kinds of Degrees of Explication of the same thing.
– R. Boyle 1669
1.1 How Did We Get Here?
Luminescence, the eerie glow of light emitted by many physical and biological substances, is familiar to us all. The bright speck of a firefly, the luminous glow from seawater in the evening, the glow of a watch dial in the dark – all are examples of luminescence phenomena that are familiar to most of us. Familiarity and understanding are not synonymous, however. Indeed, an understanding of the various luminescence phenomena has a very long genesis and over the centuries there have been several “divers kinds of Degrees of Explication”. Luminescence has had, and continues to have, practical uses in both every-day and in more esoteric applications. Computer screens, electronic indicators, lighting, lasers, and many, many other examples are indications that the field of luminescence is very broad and potentially very useful.
One such field of use is in the detection and measurement of radiation – a field generally known as “dosimetry,” or the act of measuring the dose of radiation absorbed by an object. The amount of radiation absorbed by an object and the subsequent amount of luminescence emitted from it is the basis of the use of luminescence in dosimetry. The connection between radiation and luminescence was made many years ago and, in fact, those of us active in the field of luminescence dosimetry can take pride in the fact that the study of luminescence can be traced to the beginning of the modern scientific method. Although it would be surprising if ancient Islamic or, perhaps, Chinese scholars had not already noted the phenomenon, in one of its many guises, it can nevertheless be argued that the first modern description of luminescence stems from the work of Robert Boyle in mid-seventeenth-century England, published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. Boyle – considered to be the “father” of chemistry, as well as being a physicist, an inventor, a philosopher, and a theologian – gives an evocative description of (what we now term) luminescence emitted from a remarkable piece of diamond, loaned to him by a friend, John Clayton (Boyle 1664). The word “luminescence” was not used by Boyle who referred to it as the “glow” from the stone. In a later publication concerning luminescence from a liquid he uses the wonderfully suggestive term “self-shining” to describe the phenomenon (Boyle 1680).
Boyle’s 1664 account of luminescence from diamond is generally accepted as the first scientific description of the phenomenon of thermoluminescence (TL). Boyle described various ways of heating the diamond to induce from it the emission of light. It is not clear, however, how Boyle energized the diamond in the first place. We now know that the TL phenomenon requires that the material must first absorb energy from an external energy source. The energy thus stored is then released by the application of a second source of energy (heat). As the initial energy is released, some of it is emitted in the form of visible light (thermoluminescence). Without that first energy storage step, no TL can be induced. Boyle may or may not have known that the process he was observing was, in fact, a two-step procedure, but he was vague on how he energized the diamond in his possession; readers are left to speculate how this may have been achieved. Possibilities include natural radioactivity or light, but perhaps the most likely source was physical stimulation (rubbing, scratching, etc.) producing what we now call tribo-thermoluminescence (“tribo-” from the Greek “trī̀bein,” meaning “to rub”). In any case, once heated to release the TL, the material would have to be
