Optical properties and radiation shielding competence of Bi/Te-BGe glass system containing B2O3 and GeO2

Abstract

In this study we present the optical features including several parameters, gamma-ray photon and fast neutron absorption parameters of quaternary glasses with the chemical structure: xBi(2)O(3) + (80-x)TeO2 + 10B(2)O(3) + 10GeO(2) for x = 40, 50, and 60 mol% and coded as Bi/Te-BGe1, Bi/TeBGe2, and Bi/Te-BGe3 respectively. The FLUKA Monte Carlo and XCOM code were used to evaluate the photon shielding parameters of the glasses for energies between 0.284 and 2.506 MeV. The optical quantities such as the molar refractivity R-m, molar polarizability alpha(mol), reflectance loss (R-loss), optical transmission (T-opt), metallization criterion (M) and the static dielectric constant epsilon(sta)of the glasses were estimated to understand their optical characteristic. Mass attenuation coefficient of 0.345, 0.368, and 0.386 cm(2)/g was obtained for Bi/Te-BGe1-3 respectively at 0.284 MeV. Evaluated Z(eff) ranged from 30.94 to 53.22, 32.73 - 56.29, 34.52 - 58.75 for the Bi/ Te-BGe1-3 glasses respectively. The HVL within the investigated energy similar to other estimated photon shielding parameters showed great enhancement as the density and Bi2O3 content of the glasses improved. Similar improvement on the fast neutron removal cross section also increased from 0.1141 to 0.1178 cm(-1) as bismuth oxide increases in the glass system. The estimated optical parameters also showed great dependence on the chemical structure of the glasses. The present Bi/Te-BGe1-3 glasses showed excellent fast neutron and photon absorption capacity compared to some common shields; this makes them potentially useful for radiation protection applications.