Effects of Various Annealing on the Thermoluminescence Behavior of Hexagonal Boron Nitride: A Group III–Nitride Semiconductor

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of different annealing methods on the dosimetric properties of the Group III–nitride semiconductor hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) to get the optimal annealing corresponding to an ideal thermoluminescence (TL) glow curve. Two distinct annealing methods were applied to 15 powder samples. The first technique involved modulating the temperature within the range of 200°C to 1000°C while keeping the duration fixed at 30 min. In contrast, the second approach varied the annealing duration between 1 and 120 min while maintaining a constant temperature of 900°C. The resultant TL glow curves displayed two distinct dosimetric peaks at 160°C and 255°C for annealing temperatures between 600°C and 900°C and durations ranging from 1 to 30 min. Nevertheless, at elevated annealing temperatures and extended durations, an additional shallow peak was identified at approximately 85°C. A comparative evaluation of the findings revealed that optimal TL performance is attained at 900°C for 30 min, supplemented by an additional storage period of 10 min to mitigate the impact of the shallow peak. Moreover, SEM and XRD analysis showed a more stable and homogeneous microstructure under this process.