Differentiation of polymorphs by Ionoluminescence

Polymorph minerals are natural materials that share the same composition but have a different structure. Traditionally, the characterization of polymorphs has been done using different techniques of microscopy, X-ray diffraction Raman or IR Spectroscopy for instance.In this work we propose the use of a new technique as an alternative to characterise polymorphs: Ion Beam Induced Luminescence (IBIL). As an advantage to the other techniques, IBIL can be carried out simultaneously with the PIXE technique or other Ion Beam Analysis techniques and the combination will yield results on elemental composition and luminescence properties at the same time.Different minerals have been analysed with IBIL as an example of application to the characterization of polymorphs and its correspondent spectra are explained in this paper.