tgcd: An R package for analyzing thermoluminescence glow curves

Thermoluminescence (TL) glow curves are widely used in dosimetric studies. Many commercial and free-distributed programs are used to deconvolute TL glow curves. This study introduces an open-source R package tgcd to conduct TL glow curve analysis, such as kinetic parameter estimation, glow peak simulation, and peak shape analysis. TL glow curves can be deconvoluted according to the general-order empirical expression or the semi-analytical expression derived from the one trap-one recombination center (OTOR) model based on the Lambert W function by using a modified Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm from which any of the parameters can be constrained or fixed. The package provides an interactive environment to initialize parameters and offers an automated “trial-and-error” protocol to obtain optimal fit results. First-order, second-order, and general-order glow peaks (curves) are simulated according to a number of simple kinetic models. The package was developed using a combination of Fortran and R programming languages to improve efficiency and flexibility.