How Does Thermoluminescence Dating?

In thermoluminescence dating, these long-term traps are used to determine the age of materials: When irradiated crystalline material is again heated or exposed to strong light, the trapped electrons are given sufficient energy to escape. ... Therefore, at that point the thermoluminescence signal is zero.

Is thermoluminescence dating accurate?

Using oxygen and lithium ions from the Tandem accelerator at the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN) in Florence, researchers found that their measurements were accurate to within 1%, despite large fluctuations in the irradiation beam.

How far back does thermoluminescence dating go?

It's a very popular dating method in archaeology because not only can it date pottery, the type of material we find the most when excavating, but it can also date further back than 50,000 years unlike radiocarbon dating. That, and it much cheaper in comparison to other dating methods.