Thermoluminescence properties of lithium magnesium borate glasses system doped with dysprosium oxide

We report the impact of dysprosium (Dy³⁺) dopant and magnesium oxide (MgO) modifier on the thermoluminescent properties of lithium borate (LB) glass via two procedures. The thermoluminescence (TL) glow curves reveal a single prominent peak at 190 °C for 0.5 mol% of Dy³⁺. An increase in MgO contents by 10 mol% enhances the TL intensity by a factor of 1.5 times without causing any shift in the maximum temperature. This enhancement is attributed to the occurrence of extra electron traps created via magnesium and the energy transfer to trivalent Dy³⁺ ions. Good linearity in the range of 0.01–4 Gy with a linear correlation coefficient of 0.998, fading as low as 21% over a period of 3 months, excellent reproducibility without oven annealing and tissue equivalent effective atomic numbers ~8.71 are achieved. The trap parameters, including geometric factor (μ_g), activation energy (E) and frequency factor (s) associated with LMB:Dy are also determined. These favorable TL characteristics of prepared glasses may contribute towards the development of Li₂O–MgO–B₂O₃ radiation dosimeters. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.