Synthesis and Characterization of Zinc-Lead-Phosphate Glasses Doped with Europium for Radiation Shielding

Appropriate glass systems can provide efficient transparent radiation shielding. The current study involved the preparation of the glass system with a composition of xEu(2)O(3)-(15-x)ZnO-10CaO-35PbO-40P(2)O(5) (where x = 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 wt.% Eu2O3). The formation of the glass phase was confirmed using X-ray diffraction (XRD). The study analyzed physical and structural parameters, such as optical conductivity (& sigma;(opt)), refractive index (n), and optical band gap (E-g), with the amount of Eu2O3. The findings indicate that the optical band gap increased as the Eu2O3 content increased. Additionally, a decrease in Urbach energy (E-U) was observed, suggesting an improvement in the orderliness of the glass. The study also determined various parameters for gamma-ray shielding, including mass attenuation coefficient (& mu;(m)), effective atomic number (Z(eff)), and kerma coefficient (k). For neutron shielding characteristics, the macroscopic effective removal cross-section (& sigma;(R)) of fast neutrons was calculated.