Anomalies in the determination of the activation energy of thermoluminescence glow peaks by general-order fitting

Thermoluminescence glow curves calculated from three physically meaningful models are fitted into the empirical general-order (GO) kinetics expression to find the fitted values of activation energy E and the kinetic order b. The results show that the figure of merit of the fit deteriorates progressi vely as the best fitted value of b deviates from 1 and 2. At the same time the fitted E value also departs from its true value. This result is used to reinterpret the observed change in E of glow peak 5 of LiF (TLD-100) in po st-irradiation annealed samples. It is concluded that the application of GO kinetics to glow peak 5 of LiF (TLD-100) leads to inconsistencies and that the changes in E found by GO fitting may not be real.