The influence of the presence of BaO impurity on the optical absorption, radiation hardness and thermally stimulated luminescence of BaF2 has been investigated. The presence of oxygen impurity gives rise to three absorption bands in the UV region, peaking around 220, 280 and 335 nm. Further, the impurity is found to be detrimental to crystal hardness against ionizing radiations. The thermally stimulated luminescence (TSL) has been studied from gamma-irradiated crystals containing different fractions of BaO impurity. Four prominent glow peaks around 100degreesC (peak I), 150degreesC (peak II), 220degreesC (peak III) and 290degreesC (peak IV) are observed for crystals containing BaO impurity concentrations lower than 0.5% (by wt). For crystals containing higher impurity concentrations. two additional peaks around 75degreesC and 260degreesC are also observed. The kinetics of TSL emission is observed to be of first order, implying that the absorption and the emission centers responsible for TSL are the same. The normalized TSL output for peak I is found to vary linearly with the concentration of oxide impurity. This fact can be utilized to detect the presence of minute amounts of oxygen in BaF2 lattice, which is crucial to the growth of crystals exhibiting high radiation hardness. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.