Thermoluminescence studies of F centers in X-irradiated potassium chloride

Solid State Physics is a comparatively new field in which much research has been conducted in the past few decades. The study of crystal defects is a topic of major concern in this field. Color centers are crystal defects which have been the subject of extensive research in an attempt to understand what they are, how they are formed, and how they are annihilated or transformed into other defects, as well as how they affect the properties of the crystal in which they are present. Historically, color center research was performed with the alkali halides because of their comparatively simple structure and because of the fact that they are easily obtainable in a reasonably pure state. The alkali halides (of which potassium chloride given the symbol KC1 is an example) are compounds formed from ions in the first and seventh group of the periodic table which typically crystallize in the NaC1-type structure