Characterization of synthesized xBaO-(40-x)Li2O-60B2O3 glass system: a multi-dimensional research on optical and physical properties

This study aimed to investigate the impact of barium oxide and lithium oxide substitution on optical and gamma-ray attenuation properties of some borate glasses. Accordingly, nine glass samples with a chemical composition of xBaO·(40–x)Li 2 O·60B 2 O 3 (where x = 0 mol.%, 5 mol.%, 10 mol.%, 15 mol.%, 20 mol.%, 25 mol.%, 30 mol.%, 35 mol.% and 40 mol.%) were investigated in terms of their optical and gamma-ray attenuation properties. Our findings indicate that increasing the BaO content increases the density and molar volume. The energy gap, linear refractive index, and Urbach energy are all stated to be constant as the amount of BaO in the glass structure increases. These trends are due to the formation of BO 4 and NBOs units by adding BaO and Li 2 O performed at the same rate. The optical basicity varied between 0.73 and 0.92. Furthermore, Monte Carlo N-Particle extended (MCNPX) and Phy-X PSD software were used to estimate the radiation shielding capacity of prepared glasses within an energy photon range of 0.015–15 MeV. The results showed that BaO additive enhances the radiation protecting capacity of glasses, and BLB40 sample that had 40 BaO mol.% achieved the highest gamma-ray shielding performance. It can be concluded that there is a direct impact of increasing BaO reinforcement in borate glasses in terms of gamma ray attenuation competencies.