Structural, optical features and gamma ray shielding properties of Bi2O3-TeO2-B2O3-GeO2 glass system

Bi2O3-TeO2-B2O3-GeO2 quaternary glass system was prepared using a conventional melt quenching technique. The amorphous nature of prepared glasses was confirmed by X-ray diffraction measurement. The effect of Bi2O3 content on the B-O network structure was studied by FTIR spectroscopy. The existence of fundamental vibrations of germinates and tellurite network was confirmed by FTIR measurement. The study of optical absorption revealed that the indirect optical band gap (E-g) decreases with the increment of Bi2O3 content. Results of E-g shown that the E-g varied between 2.81 and 3.07 eV. The refractive index (n(o)) obtained using E-g was observed to change from 2.38 to 2.45. Besides, the molar refraction, oxide ion polarizability, optical basicity and interaction parameters were observed to vary with the increment of Bi2O3 mol% in the prepared glass samples. The glasses were observed highly ionic. In this study, mass attenuation coefficients (mu(m)), half-value layer (HVL), mean free path (MFP), effective atomic number (Z(eff)), radiation protection efficiency and exposure buildup factor (EBF) were determined experimentally and compared with Phy-X/PSD code. It was perceived that all prepared glasses have high mu(m) values at 356 keV and found between 0.231 and 0.257 cm(3)/g. The results of HVL and MFP indicated that prepared glass containing 65 mol% of Bi2O3 exhibited the lowest values of MFP (0.731 cm) and HVL (0.506 cm) at low energy. Obtained results of shielding parameters revealed that 65BiTBG glass has the highest gamma ray shielding capability than commercial shielding glasses and concretes.