Effect of chromium oxide on the physical, optical, and radiation shielding properties of lead sodium borate glasses

In this paper, we prepared lead sodium borate glasses modified with different amount of chromium oxide according to (50-x)B2O3 + 40PbO + 10Na(2)O(2) + xCr(2)O(3), where x=0, 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5 wt%. The current glasses were prepared by melting the stoichiometry at 1050 degrees C, quenching into the water, and annealing for five hours at 250 degrees C. The amorphous state was proved by applying the X-ray diffraction test. The physical parameters such as density and molar volume were evaluated for each glass. The optical parameters such as bandgap, Urbach energy, refractive index, dielectric constant, reflection loss, molar polarizability, molar refractivity, optical dielectric constant, optical electronegativity, electron polarizability, optical basicity, metallization, and cut-off wavelength were obtained based on JASCO UV-Vis-NIR spectrophotometer. The shielding studies included gamma, electron, proton, and neutron radiations. The newly developed Phy-X/PSD and Phy-X/ZeXTRa programs along with Geant4 simulations were used to estimate the radiation shielding parameters such as the attenuation and transmission factors. The effect of Cr2O3 content on the optical and radiation shielding properties was determined and well interpreted. The radiation shielding features of the prepared glasses were compared with those of various ordinary concretes, and Pb-free, Pb-based, and commercial glasses. The results revealed that the lead sodium borate glasses modified with chromium oxide could be useful for the shielding applications against gamma, electron, and neutron radiations, wherein the Cr2O3 content can be balanced according to the type and energy of incident radiation.