On the expected order of kinetics in a series of thermoluminescence (TL) and thermally stimulated conductivity (TSC) peaks

•We explain the prevalence of first-order TL in multi-trap multi-center models.•The lower temperature peaks tend to be of first order even with strong retrapping.•The highest temperature peak in a series tends to be of second order.•Long tail at the high-temperature end is explained by a different mechanism.

As reported in the literature, both in experimental results and in simulated glow curves, in a series of TL peaks associated with a series of trapping states and a single recombination center, the peaks tend to be of first order. In the present work we show theoretically and demonstrate by examples of numerical simulations that the last peak in a series obtained by a model of a single recombination center and multiple traps may be of second order whereas the lower-temperature peaks are usually of first order. This is the case even when retrapping is significantly faster than recombination. In some cases, the last peak has a long tail, longer than that of second-order peaks, which has to do with a different mechanism that has been discussed in a recent paper. Similar simulations of a more complex and more realistic situation of a model with multiple trapping states and multiple recombination centers have been performed. The prevalence of first-order appearance of both the curves of free electrons, associated with thermally stimulated conductivity (TSC) and of TL, evaluated for randomly chosen sets of trapping parameters, is shown by histograms. The occurrence of a small number of very high values of the symmetry factor is also discussed.