Analysis of the quartz OSL decay curve by differentiation

A mathematical transformation based on differentiation is introduced that converts a Continuous Wave Optically Stimulated Luminescence (CW-OSL) decay curve composed of a number of exponentials into a spectrum like curve with different peaks. Peak areas of the transformed curve are equal to the time integrated OSL of the exponentials. It is shown that the peaks of the transformed curve are more separated then the original decay curve components. The transformation is applied to computer generated OSL curves and to measured CW-OSL decay curves of three different quartz samples. Advantages and limitations of this differentiation analysis method are discussed.