Spectroscopic study of natural quartz samples

In this work we performed a spectroscopic characterization of natural amethyst, citrine, and prasiolite samples from different localities. These materials were examined by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), UV-visible spectroscopy (UV-vis), electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR), and inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES). Samples were used in this study in as-received, gamma-irradiated, UV-irradiated, and heat-treated conditions. We observed the changes in the FTIR, UV-vis, and EPR spectra of these samples as a function of the condition they were analyzed. We noticed that gamma radiation had a great effect on the color of amethyst and citrine samples used in this work. It was observed that light colored samples showed a deepening of their colors upon gamma-irradiation and a bleaching upon heat treatment at 450 degrees C. However, we observed that gamma radiation had a slight effect on the color of citrine. UV-irradiations revealed that the coloration of both amethyst and prasiolite can be bleached by UV radiation. On the other hand, the color of citrine was not affected by UV radiation. (c) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.