Fabrication, optical, structural and gamma radiation shielding characterizations of GeO2-PbO-Al2O3-CaO glasses

(90-x)GeO2-xPbO-5Al(2)O(3)-5CaO: 0 <= x <= 40 mol%) glasses have been fabricated by conventional melt quenching technique and coded as GACPb00 to GACPb40. The structure of the prepared glasses has been examined using X-ray diffraction measurements. The UV-vis spectra in the range of 190-1100 nm wavelength for the proposed glasses have been recorded. Based on the absorption spectra, the band gap of optical energy (E-gap) has been evaluated using the direct method and absorption spectrum fitting (ASF) model. Index of refraction (n), molar polarizability (alpha(Molar)), molar refractivity (R-Molar), metallization criterion (M-Criterion) dielectric constants (epsilon(Static) and epsilon(Optical)), optical transmission (T-Optical), reflection loss (R-Loss) have been evaluated. WinXcom program was applied to study the photons shielding behavior of the present samples. The mass attenuation coefficient of the samples increases with the increase of PbO content at all energies. However, this increase is more notable at low energies. The current samples have relatively high effective atomic number (Z(eff)) at low energy due to the photoelectric phenomenon. The Z(eff) for GACPb00 and GACPb40 at 0.356 MeV is 16.02 and 30.76 respectively, and at 0.662 MeV these values are 15.58 and 23.71. The results also revealed that the density of the samples plays a very important rule of the half value thickness (HVT), and as well the thickness of the samples that are used to block or attenuate the photons. Interestingly, we found that GACPb40 has the biggest mu/rho and lowest HVT which implies that this sample has superior photon attenuation capability.