Photoluminescence of gamma-irradiated Beryllium oxide

This study analyses the emission and excitation spectra of Beryllium Oxide (BeO) unirradiated and irradiated with ⁶⁰Co gamma radiation because of its potential use in radiation dosimetry. Deconvolution of the spectra showed that using an excitation wavelength λ_exc = 330 nm, four emission bands centered at 404, 430, 468 and 545 nm are obtained; These emission bands appear in both irradiated and non-irradiated BeO; however, the irradiated samples exhibited an extra emission band centered at 416 nm. The excitation spectrum was obtained by setting the emission monochromator at a wavelength λ₀ = 400 nm. By means of deconvolution, it was obtained that the emission spectrum of the non-irradiated samples is constituted by two bands centered at 307 and 331 nm, while for the irradiated samples the spectrum has three components centered at 297, 334 and 317 nm. In addition, it was found that the area under the curve of all emission bands decreases after irradiation, this may be due to the formation of electron-hole pairs after irradiation, which have the effect of reducing radiative phenomena, which it could be favorable for the applications of BeO in ionizing radiation dosimetry.