Radiation shielding and optical features for a PbO–BaO–B2O3 system

Glass compositions of xPbO-(40-x)BaO–60B2O3 system (0 ≤ x ≤ 40) have been prepared and investigated for their physical, optical, and radiation shielding properties. The optical spectra of the present system reveal UV–Vis absorption related to the presence of lead ions besides the unavoidable trace impurities within the raw materials. It is found that the density D increased and molar volume Vm decreased slowly with increasing PbO content which is attributed mainly to the higher molecular weight of PbO than BaO. Eg, n and EU remain almost constant with increasing PbO content which implies little change in the fraction of NBOs. The molar refraction decreases slightly from 16.2 to 15.89 cm3, and there is mostly no change observed in the value of the metallization criterion. Within an energy photon range of 0.015–15 MeV, Monte Carlo simulation package (FLUKA) and NISTXCOM enabled evaluation of prepared glasses' radiation shielding capability. This investigation revealed that as the PbO content of a glass network increases from 0 to 40 mol percent, the gamma shielding properties of the glass samples improve. The results also indicated that the values of both FLUKA and NIST XCOM are close, indicating the accuracy of the obtained results. In the half-value layer (T0.5) experiments, we discovered that a layer of relatively thin thickness could be employed to diminish the intensity of low-energy photons. Higher energy requires a thicker layer in order to minimize the number of photons that can pass through the glass.