Synergistic Effects of Bismuth Oxide on the Radiation Attenuation Characteristics of Borosilicate Glasses

This work explores Bi2O3-doped borosilicate glasses' synthesis and radiation shielding characterization, and their applicability as radiation shields. The glasses are prepared via melt quenching in the composition series of 60B(2)O(3)-(22-x) SiO2-10CaO-(8+x)Bi2O3 (where x = 4,8,12 and 16 mol%). The produced glasses' radiation shielding properties, such as the mass attenuation coefficient (MAC), the transmission factor (TF), and the effective atomic number (Z(eff)), were examined, and the effect of Bi2O3 on the samples' radiation shielding performance was explored. The glass sample with 24 mol% Bi2O3 exhibited notable efficiency in shielding against gamma radiation. This is evidenced by the favourable change in the MAC, TF, and Z(eff) with increasing Bi2O3 content. We examined the relation between the glass thickness and the TF, with the results revealing that the 0.6 cm thickness glass possesses the highest TF compared to a thickness of 1.2 cm, indicating that at the thickness of 1.2 cm, the glass material attenuates better compared to 0.6 cm. The relation between the glasses' density and their half value layer was also examined.