Room temperature instability of E'gamma centers induced by gamma irradiation in amorphous SiO2

We study by optical absorption measurements the stability of E'(gamma) centers induced in amorphous silica at room temperature by gamma irradiation up to 79 kGy. A significant portion of the defects spontaneously decay after the end of irradiation, thus allowing the partial recovery of the transparency loss initially induced by irradiation. The decay kinetics observed after gamma irradiation with a 0.6 kGy dose closely resembles that measured after exposure to 2000 pulses of pulsed ultraviolet (4.7 eV) laser light of 40 mJ/cm(2) energy density per pulse. In this regime, annealing is ascribed to the reaction of the induced E'(gamma) centers with diffusing H(2) of radiolytic origin. At higher gamma doses, the decay kinetics becomes unexpectedly slower notwithstanding the progressive growth of the concentration of induced defects. In particular, the annealing kinetics of E'(gamma) centers after 79 kGy irradiation is inconsistent with the reaction parameters between the defect and H(2). To explain this result, on the basis of the quantitative analysis of the kinetics, we propose water-related species to be responsible for the slow room temperature annealing of E'(gamma) after irradiation with such a dose. This model is qualitatively supported by results obtained by IR absorption measurements, which show an increase of the absorption in the spectral region of Si-OH groups.