Chemical Formula: CaTiSiO5
Familly: Silicates
Status: IMA-GP
Crystal System: Monoclinic
Mineral for Display: No
Associated names (luminescent varieties, discredited names, synonymes etc.): sphene,UV Type | Main color | Intensity | Observation Frequency |
---|---|---|---|
Short Waves (254 nm): | Dark Orange /Tawn | ||
Most Common Activator: Radiation induced centers
Other activators: Cr3+ , Ti3+ , Sm3+ , Eu3+ , Er3+ , Pr3+ , Nd3+ , Tm3+ ,
Peaks in the spectrum (nm):
Sm3+ : 600nm Eu 3+ : 620, 703nm Ti3+? : 742 749 762 769 793 798 804 820nm Cr3+ : 750, 750, 786nm
Spectrum: Michael Gaft, Petah Tikva, Israel. Plot: Institute of Mineralogy, University of Vienna, Austria, with permission of the authors.
To the spectrum gallery (2 spectra in the gallery)
Potential luminescent centers include intrinsic TiO6 and Ti3+ and different impurities such as trivalent and divalent rare-earth elements (REE), Pb2+ and Mn2+ substituting for Ca2+, Cr3+ and Mn4+ substituting for Ti4+, and Cr4+, Cr5+ and Fe3+ substituting for Si4+. Besides that, titanite can incorporate minor amounts of radioactive impurity components (particularly U and Th) that affect the crystal structure through α- and β-decay events. Thus radiation-induced luminescence centers are also possible. Nevertheless, steady-state luminescent spectroscopy of titanite under UV and X-ray excitations did not reveal characteristic bands and lines (Gorobets and Rogojine 2001) and only ionoluminescence spectrum of titanite exhibits various narrow lines of Sm3+, Eu3+ and Nd3+ (Yang 1995). Chromium and other metals, such as Nb, Ta, V, Mn, Mg, Sn, Al, and Fe, are generally considered to be incorporated at the six-fold coordinated Ti-site whereas REEs substitute Ca on its large, seven-coordinated site. (Gaft)
(*)Data are not exhaustive and are limited to the most important localities for fluorescence
http://www.mindat.org/show.php?name=Titanite
http://webmineral.com/data/Titanite.shtml
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