PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE, vol.94, no.2, pp.141-151, 2014 (SCI-Expanded)
The properties of trapping centres in - as grown - Tl4GaIn3S8 layered single crystals were investigated in the temperature range of 10-300K using thermoluminescence (TL) measurements. TL curve was analysed to characterize the defects responsible for the observed peaks. Thermal activation energies of the trapping centres were determined using various methods: curve fitting, initial rise and peak shape methods. The results indicated that the peak observed in the low-temperature region composed of many overlapped peaks corresponding to distributed trapping centres in the crystal structure. The apparent thermal energies of the distributed traps were observed to be shifted from similar to 12 to similar to 125meV by increasing the illumination temperature from 10 to 36K. The analysis revealed that the first-order kinetics (slow retrapping) obeys for deeper level located at 292meV.