Studies on triboluminescence emission characteristics of various kinds of bulk ZnS crystals

ZnS crystal, as a semiconductor material with wide band gaps, has been investigated for a long time, due to its wide applications in many fields, like electroluminescence devices, photodiodes, functional nanomaterials, optical thin films and so on. Understanding the luminescence mechanisms of ZnS is of fundamental importance since many methods were used on the exploration of luminescence properties of ZnS. Up to now, triboluminescence properties of undoped ZnS crystals are rarely reported. Thus, we explored the luminescence emission characteristics of ZnS crystals based on triboluminescence method, and the results reveal that multi spectra and hot pressed ZnS crystals presented different fluorescence peaks at 420 nm and 475 nm respectively. This phenomenon may be due to the structural differences between different kinds of ZnS crystals, and it provides a new perspective for the study of luminescence properties of ZnS material.