The role of modifier oxides on the photon attenuation characteristics of Nd2O3 doped B2O3-WO3-PbO-Ro2O3 glass systems (with Ro2O3 = Sb2O3, Bi2O3 and Al2O3)

This research investigated the impact of modifier oxides on the radiation shielding features of Nd2O3 doped B2O3-WO3-PbO-Ro(2)O(3) glasses (with Ro(2)O(3)=Bi2O3, Al2O3 and Sb2O3). The Phy-X/PSD software was applied to determine the mass attenuation coefficient (MAC) of the glasses. Among the selected glasses, 60B(2)O(3)-2WO(3)-35PbO-3Bi(2)O(3) sample has the greatest MAC. At 0.284 MeV, the MAC values are 0.307, 0.312, 0.328, 0.308, 0.311 and 0.322 cm(2)/g for Sb3, Al3, Bi3, SbNd, AlNd and BiNd respectively. The MAC results demonstrated that there is a clearer advantage to using the present glasses at low energies, while at high energies the advantage is less noticeable. We also investigated the effective atomic number (Z(eff)) for the present glasses. The Z(eff) values are at their greatest at 0.284 MeV, and are equal to 33.83, 33.22, 36.25, 33.95, 33.55 and 35.58 for Sb3, Al3, Bi3, SbNd, AlNd and BiNd respectively. The values slow down and attain the minimum value at 1.333 MeV. We compared the MAC for the selected Nd2O3 doped B2O3-WO3-PbO-Ro(2)O(3) glasses with B2O3-Bi2O3-Na2O2-Sb2O3 glasses, SrO-PbO-B2O3 glasses and WO3 doped borate glasses at 0.662 MeV. We found that all of our glasses in this work have higher MAC than 60B(2)O(3)-20Bi(2)O(3)-20Na(2)O(2), 55B(2)O(3)-20Bi(2)O(3)-20Na(2)O(2)-5Sb2O3 and 50B(2)O(3)-20Bi(2)O(3)-20Na(2)O(2)-10Sb(2)O(3). Also, all of our selected glasses possess higher MAC and thus have better shielding competence than 20SrO-10PbO-70 B(2)O(3)3 sample.