Evaluation of kinetics parameters in the X-irradiated TSL studies of RE3+-doped (RE=Eu, Tb) ZnO nanorods for dosimetric applications

This paper reports the detail description of the structural and thermoluminescence of the RE3+-doped (RE=Eu, Tb) ZnO nanorods prepared by adopting co-precipitation method. Formation of as synthesized ZnO nanorods were confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The XRD pattern showed monophasic nature of the as prepared ZnO doped with Eu3+ and Tb3+ ions. The SEM image elaborates the nanorod morphology of RE3+ doped ZnO with diameter ranging between 60-90 nm and length between 600-900 nm. The thermoluminescence spectra of the X-ray irradiated ZnO:Eu3+ and ZnO:Tb3+ show the prominent peak for the broad glow curve peaked at 365 °C and 350 °C, respectively, which have been generated via the recombination of the released electrons from the traps upon thermal stimulation. The peaks are found to obey first order kinetics and the activation energy for the ZnO:Eu3+ and ZnO:Tb3+ samples, estimated via isothermal luminescence glow peak decay method, are found to be 0.8 eV and 0.9 eV respectively. Furthermore, the TL dose response and reproducibility were also studied in details, which could be very useful to establish the potentiality of the present phosphors in the field of radiation dosimetry.