Polarizability, optical electronegativity, and gamma transmission ability of newly developed Bi2O3–GeO2-Eu2O glasses

Abstract

Because radiation is used in advanced technologies on a daily basis, whether in medicine or nuclear facilities, a proper shield is required to ensure the safety of workers and the public. In this paper, a newly developed Bi2O3+GeO2+Eu2O glass system was reported as a new candidate for potential radiation shielding applications. Several optical parameters such as polarizability, optical transmission, refractivity, and optical electronegativity were determined and discussed in detail for the involved glass specimens. The radiation shielding studies for the present glass samples were performed via Geant4 Monte Carlo simulations and several theoretical approaches based on the Phy-X platform. The results of gamma studies show that the maximum values of attenuation factors, namely MACs, are 85.1464, 85.0830, 85.0201, and 84.9579 cm2/g at 0.015 MeV for BGE0.5, BGE1.0, BGE1.5, and BGE2.0, respectively. The neutron shielding studies reveal that as Eu2O3 increased from 0.5 to 2 mol%, the thermal cross section increased from 47.63 to 184.53 1/cm. Furthermore, the investigated glasses are found to be more shielding than RS-253-G18, ordinary concrete, barite concrete, RS-360, and are very close to Pb-based glass. © 2022 Elsevier B.V.