Gamma radiation shielding properties of glasses within the TeO2-TiO2-ZnO system

Radiations are widely used in hospitals and health services in radiotherapy and molecular imaging using x-ray and gamma radiation which considered as the most penetrating radiations and very difficult to shield. In this study, the radiation shielding properties of different zinc oxide (ZnO) concentrations of the (95-x)TeO2-5TiO(2)-xZnO (x =5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 and 40 mol%) glass system was investigated to be introduced as a new transparency effective shielding material. In order to study shielding properties, mass attenuation coefficients in the energy range of 0.015 15 MeV photon energies for the current glass system were calculated using ParShield software. Moreover, half value layer, mean free path and effective atomic number were evaluated using the obtained attenuation coefficient. The results indicated that if ZnO was added to the current glass system the mass attenuation coefficient will be decreased as well as effective atomic number values. The highest mass attenuation coefficient at all energies was found to be in TT(5)Z(5) glass sample as well as the effective atomic number value.