Monte Carlo simulations of luminescence processes under quasi-equilibrium (QE) conditions

• A simplified Monte Carlo method for TL and OSL is presented.
• Method is based on General One Trap model, and quasi-equilibrium conditions.
• Small clusters of a few traps can lead to multiple peaks in TL and LM-OSL signals.
• Effects of retrapping and degree of trap filling are simulated.

Previous researchers have carried out Monte Carlo simulations of thermoluminescence (TL) phenomena by considering the allowed transitions of charge carriers between the conduction band, electron traps and recombination centers. Such simulations have demonstrated successfully the effect of trap clustering on the kinetics of charge carriers in a solid, and showed that trap clustering can significantly change the observed luminescence properties. While such Monte Carlo simulations have been carried out for TL, there has been no such trap clustering studies for optically stimulated luminescence phenomena (OSL). This paper presents a simplified method of carrying out Monte Carlo simulations for TL and linearly modulated optically stimulated luminescence (LM-OSL) phenomena, based on the General One Trap (GOT) model, which is a special case of the one trap one recombination center model (OTOR) when quasi-equilibrium conditions (QE) hold. The simulated results show that the presence of small clusters consisting of a few traps in a solid can lead to multiple peaks in both the TL and LM-OSL signals. The effects of retrapping and degree of trap filling are simulated for such multi-peak luminescence signals, and insight is obtained into the mechanism producing these peaks. The method presented in this paper can be easily generalized for other types of luminescence solids in which the recombination probability varies with time.