Elucidating the influences of strontium (II) oxides in TeO2–B2O3–BaO: Fabrication, Raman spectroscopy, and γ-ray protection properties for the novel high-density glasses

Abstract

The concept presented in this paper is to study the impact of strontium oxide on the structural and radiation shielding properties of TeO2–B2O3–BaO glasses. A series consists of five glass samples fabricated as a mixture of the 60TeO2+ (30-x)B2O3+10BaO + xSrO, 0 ≤x ≤ 20 mol.%. The replacement of B2O3 by SrO contents affects the fabricated glasses' density and molar volume where the density of the fabricated glasses enhanced by 9.32% associated with a reduction in the molar volume from 26.299 cm3/mol to 25.075 cm3/mol. The study showed an enhancement in the structural, optical, and gamma-ray shielding properties with the addition of SrO. The optical band gap energy Eg decreasing from 4.1127 eV to 3.8301 eV in the case of a direct transition and ranging from 3.5686 eV to 3.2489 eV in the case of an indirect transition with increasing SrO content. Although the Urbach energy EU values increased from 0.3265 eV to 0.8448 eV as the concentration of Sr ions increased. Furthermore, the linear attenuation coefficient at 661 keV raised from 0.376 to 0.414 cm−1 with raising the SrO content from 0 to 20 mol.%. The mentioned increase in the fabricated samples' linear attenuation coefficient is accompanied by a decrease in the half-value thickness and lead equivalent thickness, while it is accompanied by an increase in the fabricated samples’ radiation protection efficiency.