An investigation of luminescence properties of CaF2: Dy nanophosphor irradiated with gamma rays and low energy proton beams

Sayali S Gadre; Birendra Singh; Ambuj Tripathi; Eirik Malinen; Anant Pandey

doi:10.1016/j.apradiso.2023.110821

An investigation of luminescence properties of CaF₂: Dy nanophosphor irradiated with gamma rays and low energy proton beams

Appl Radiat Isot. 2023 Jul:197:110821. doi: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2023.110821. Epub 2023 Apr 26.

Authors

Sayali S Gadre¹, Birendra Singh², Ambuj Tripathi², Eirik Malinen³, Anant Pandey⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics & Astrophysics, University of Delhi, Delhi, 110007, India.
² Inter-University Accelerator Centre, Aruna Asaf Ali Marg, New Delhi, 110067, India.
³ Department of Physics, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
⁴ Department of Physics, Sri Venkateswara College, University of Delhi, Benito Juarez Road, Dhaula Kuan, New Delhi, 110021, India. Electronic address: apandey@svc.ac.in.

PMID: 37146467
DOI: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2023.110821

Abstract

This paper reports the luminescence properties of nanocrystalline calcium fluoride doped with dysprosium (CaF₂: Dy). The nanophosphor has been synthesized by the chemical co-precipitation technique and the dopant concentration has been optimized at 0.3 mol% using thermoluminescence (TL) intensity emitted post 50Gy gamma dose irradiation of samples doped with different dopant concentrations. X-ray diffraction shows the formation of crystalline particles with an average size of 49.233 nm. Photoluminescence (PL) emission spectrum shows the characteristic peaks at 455 nm, 482 nm, 573 nm corresponding to ⁴I_15/2 to ⁶H_15/2, ⁴F_9/2 to ⁶H_15/2 and ⁴F_9/2 to ⁶H_13/2 Dy³⁺ transitions respectively. PL excitation spectrum shows a peak at 327 nm which corresponds to the Dy³⁺ transition of ⁶H_15/2 to ⁴L_19/2. Gamma (of 1.25 MeV) and low energy proton beam (of 30 keV) irradiated nanophosphor shows a variation in TL glow curve structure and peak position with an increase in radiation dose/fluence. However, the nanophosphor shows a wide linear dose response for ⁶⁰Co gamma radiation in the range 10 Gy - 1.5 kGy and for low energy proton beam in the fluence range of 10¹²-10¹⁴ ions/cm². Srim 2013 has been used to calculate the ion beam parameters including the range of protons in CaF₂: Dy 0.3 mol%. The nanophosphor CaF₂: Dy could be further investigated as a potential dosimeter for gamma rays and proton beam by studying its TL properties for different energies of these radiations.

Keywords: 2013; Nanophosphor; Photoluminescence; Radiation dosimetry; SRIM; Thermoluminescence.