Photoluminescent properties of nanocrystallized zinc borosilicate glasses

Zinc borosilicate glass is studied as a scintillating material. Glass samples with zinc oxide concentrations as high as 60 mol% were prepared successfully without deteriorating the glass-forming ability. Different post-preparation thermal treatments were carried out on the samples in the temperature range of 300-700 deg. C and for 3-8 h duration. A dominant emission band was observed near 400 nm in the luminescence spectra with the excitation peak near 260 nm. Photoluminescence decay kinetics shows dominant decay times of about 7-10 and 170-200 ns with a weak tail down to several tens of microseconds. Thermal treatment was found to enhance the 400 nm emission intensity several times with respect to an as-prepared sample and X-ray diffraction analysis confirmed the presence of ZnO crystallized phase in heavily annealed glass samples