Ionizing photons attenuation characterization of quaternary tellurite-zinc-niobium-gadolinium glasses using Phy-X/PSD software

In this work, photon attenuation performances of the selected TeO2-ZnO-Nb2O5-Gd2O3 glasses have been investigated at various energy points using Phy-X/PSD software. Additionally, neutron shielding properties have been estimated. Dependencies of radiation attenuation capacities with the photon energy and the compositions have been evaluated. According to the obtained results, the mass attenuation coefficients and the effective atomic numbers of tellurite glasses doped with Gd2O3 content of 2.5 mol% are higher than rest of the other samples. Moreover, half value layer and mean free path values of the investigated glass samples recommended that the attenuation capabilities of the ionizing photons increase as the densities of samples increase, hence, the glass having high density must be considered for high attenuation effectiveness. The mass attenuation coefficients vary from 4.87426 to 5.25794 cm(2)/g for Gd2O3 concentrations with 0 (Gd = 0.0) and 2.5 mol% (Gd = 2.5) at 0.06 MeV. The mean free path values at 0.015 MeV lies within the range 0.00407-0.00493 cm, at 0.1 MeV within the range of 0.1256 to 0.1519 cm, while at 15 MeV has the range of 4.634 to 5.281 cm. The obtained results displayed that among the studied glasses, Gd = 2.5 glass sample with Gd2O3 of 2.5 mol% is found to have superior gamma-ray shielding effectiveness due to having both higher mu/p and lower mean free path values.