EPR of nominally pure Bi12SiO20

Abstract The EPR spectrum of nominally pure Bi 12 SiO 20 has been studied. A prominent band, highly isotropic, appears at a g value of 2.0045 with a peak to peak width of 58G at 90K. At low temperature, the band can be destroyed by appropriate illumination. The spectral efficiency for this optical annealing very much ressembles the optical absorption of the crystal. On warming up the sample, the band is completely recovered with a thermal activation energy of 0.29 eV. This band is attributed to an intrinsic trapped hole center.