Development of a novel MoO3-doped borate glass network for gamma-ray shielding applications

Abstract

Five glass samples with the composition of 20CdO–10SrO–(70 − x) B2O3–xMoO3, where x = 0, 5, 10, 15, and 20 mol%, were analyzed for their radiation shielding properties. The study seeks to observe the effect of increasing the concentration of MoO3 on gamma photon shielding features. The linear attenuation coefficient (LAC) of the fabricated glasses was measured experimentally at five different gamma-ray energies 0.662, 0.184, 0.28, 0.71, and 0.81 MeV. Moreover, the LAC's experimental results of all fabricated glass samples were compared with the Monte Carlo simulation code (MCNP-5) and XCOM program. The measured data and those obtained theoretically using the MCNP-5 code and XCOM program showed strong compatibility. Various parameters were analyzed to determine the glasses' viability as radiation shields, including mass attenuation coefficient, linear attenuation coefficient, radiation protection efficiency, transmission factor, half-value layer, and mean free path. The data were recorded and plotted, and it was determined that the glass coded as MB20 is the most efficient radiation shield out of the investigated samples. The experimental measurements depict that the highest LAC obtained at gamma photon energy 0.184 MeV decreased in the range between 0.557 and 0.894 cm−1, while the lowest obtained at 0.81 MeV and decreased from 0.218 to 0.38 cm−1 for the investigated glass samples MB0 and MB20, respectively.