Low-temperature luminescence and thermoluminescence from BeO:Zn single crystals

Low-temperature luminescence and thermoluminescence (TL) of BeO:Zn single crystals have been studied in the temperature range of 6–380 K and energy ranges of 1.2–6.5 eV (emission spectra) and 3.7–20 eV (luminescence excitation and reflection spectra). The introduction of zinc impurity ions (0.05 at. %) into BeO host lattice leads to the creation of both the trapped electron and hole centers: Zn$^+$ and Zn$^{2+}$ O$^−$. These two new centers are responsible for two TL glow peaks at 307 and 145 K with activation energies of 0.96 and 0.40 eV, and two emission bands at 6.0 and 1.9–2.6 eV. The first emission band is attributed to radiative annihilation of the Zn-impurity bound excitons, and the second one is associated with the intracenter electronic transitions in the defect complex comprising zinc impurity ion. The 6.0 eV luminescence center can be excited at 9.6 eV, the low-energy tail of the BeO host absorption, but below the first excitonic maximum (10.45 eV). The 1.9–2.6 eV luminescence center can be excited at the BeO optical transparency band. Both emission bands in BeO:Zn appear in the X-ray induced luminescence spectra at T = 6 K. This indicates that not only these luminescence centers are excited during band-to-band transitions, but they participate in recombination processes as well. The low-temperature (T$_0$ = 6 K) TL study of BeO:Zn single crystals was made for the first time. Analysis of the low-temperature TL glow curves allowed us not only to experimentally determine the energy characteristics of the Zn impurity states in BeO:Zn, but reveal an extremely strong influence of the isovalent zinc impurity on fluctuation rearrangement of BeO host lattice. Note, the fluctuation rearrangement of BeO host lattice, which occurs in the temperature range of self-trapped exciton transformation (80–180 K), was previously known only for undoped BeO and BeO crystals with heterovalent impurities