Study of Mechanoluminescent ZnS: Cu, Cl Phosphor for Developing Sensors

Abstract

Luminescence due to fracture is known as fracto-Mechanoluminescence (FML). Recently, fracto-luminescence phenomenon has enabled us to explore various advanced sensor applications such as pressure sensors, damage sensors, etc. This article reports the FML of ZnS: Cu, Cl phosphor prepared by solid state reaction method using nitrogen atmosphere. When ZnS: Cu, Cl phosphor is deformed impulsively by the impact of a moving piston then, initially mechanoluminescence (ML) intensity increases with time, attains a peak value and then decreases with time. The semi-log plot of the ML intensity versus (t-tm) gives the negative slope. The peak ML intensity increases linearly with increasing impact velocity. ML intensity is also increases linearly with increasing mass of the phosphor. The total ML intensity initially increases with increasing impact velocity and then it tends to attain a saturation value for higher values of the impact velocity of piston. The ML and photoluminescence (PL) spectra are lies at 532nm. The ZnS doped Cu; Cl is very cheap and suitable material for developing sensors.