Characterizing the properties of Bi2O3–TeO2–CdO glasses: a multidimensional investigation of their structure, thermal behaviour, optical properties, and gamma ray shielding capability

Bi2O3–TeO2–CdO glasses’ structural, thermal, optical, and gamma ray shielding behaviour were studied. Raman spectroscopy revealed that the glasses include BiO3, BiO6, TeO4, TeO3 units as well as CdO metal oxide clusters. The glasses lost just a small percentage of their original weight (less than 2%) on heating upto 800 °C, indicating that they can survive extreme heat without suffering any major changes to their structure or capabilities. The glass transition temperature (Tg) drops from 455 to 408 °C when Bi2O3 is added. The thermal profile of the glasses shows two exothermic peaks. As the Bi2O3 concentration in the samples rose, the indirect band gap energy dropped from 3.066 to 2.951 eV. With the use of the Phy-X program, the radiation shielding parameters have been calculated for the prepared glasses for energies ranging from 0.015 to 15 MeV. The linear attenuation coefficient (LAC) is high at 0.015 MeV (varied between 485.4 and 538.8 cm−1 for CTB4 glass, which is the glass with the largest percentage of Bi2O3, demonstrates the highest levels of LAC. The enhancement in the LAC due to the inclusion of Bi2O3 is observed in the prepared glasses. The enhancement in LAC is more pronounced at lower energies, especially below 0.03 MeV. From the effective atomic number data, increasing the amount of Bi2O3 in the glasses results in improved radiation shielding efficacy, particularly at lower energy.