Sometimes mineral separation in sediment or solid samples is not possible (polymineral samples), especially in cases of intergrowth of minerals. Pulsing (i.e. short light stimulation) the stimulation employs the different decay times of luminescence signals from different minerals in order to detect the luminescence signal predominately from a single mineral.
Separate luminescence signals from different minerals
Avoid tedious sample preparation
See also spatially resolved luminescence
Denby PM, Botter-Jensen L, Murray AS, Thomsen KJ & Moska P (2006) Application of pulsed OSL to the separation of the luminescence components from a mixed quartz/feldspar sample. Radiation Measurements 41, 774-779.
Feathers JK, Casson MA, Schmidt AH & Chithambo ML (2012) Application of pulsed OSL to polymineral fine-grained samples. Radiation Measurements 47, 201-209.
Luminescence decay of quartz and feldspar signals (from Denby et al., 2006)
