A COMPREHENSIVE STUDY ON OPTICAL FEATURES, GAMMA PHOTON BUILDUP FACTORS AND NEUTRON SHIELDING CAPABILITY OF B2O3-SB2O3-LI2O-BI2O3 GLASSES

Linear, nonlinear optical properties, photon buildup factors, and neutron shielding capability of glasses with chemical composition (65-x)B2O3-10Sb2O3-25Li2O-xBi2O3, where x = 0 (BSLB0) - 20 (BSLB20) mol% with steps of 4 mol% were examined. Molar refractivity (Rmolar) and molar polarizability (alpha molar) were increased as B2O3 content mol% increase in the examined BSLB-glasses. The values of metallization criterion (Mcriterion) confirmed that the BSLB-glasses were non-metallic materials. The static (epsilon static) and optical (epsilon optical) dielectric constants having the same trend of the refractive index (noptical). Values of optical electronegativity (chi*) were reduced from 0.825 for BSLB0 (Bi2O3= 0 mol%) glasses to 0.758 for BSLB20 (Bi2O3= 20 mol%) glasses. The linear electric/dielectric susceptibility (chi(1)) increased from 0.370 to 0.397. The nonlinear optical susceptibility (chi 3) and nonlinear refractive index n2optical were enhanced by increasing Bi2O3 content in the BSLB-glasses. The BSLB20 glasses presented the least exposure and energy absorption build-up factors (EBF and EABF) at all considered thickness. BSLB20 sample achieved the best fast neutron removal cross section ( ER) shield among all glasses. The total stopping powers (TSP) follows the trend (TSP)BSLB0 < (TSP)BSLB4 < (TSP)BSLB8 < (TSP)BSLB12 < (TSP)BSLB16 < (TSP)BSLB20. The electron absorbing and hence shielding capacity of the BSLB-glasses improves as their Bi2O3 content increase.