Gamma radiation attenuation characteristics for lithium-zinc-tellurite glasses using Geant4 code and PDS computer software

Abstract

Six glass samples with the composition of TeO2-Li2O-ZnO were analyzed for their radiation shielding properties. The radiation shielding factors for the lithium-zinc-tellurite glasses were reported using the Geant4 code and Phy-X/PSD program. The transmission factor (TF) was determined for different thicknesses and the results revealed that the TF decreases with increasing the thickness of the glass. For TeLiZ1, increasing the thickness of the sample from 0.4 cm to 1.6 cm led to decrease the transmission of the photon from 0.84 to 0.48 at 0.5 MeV and from 0.94 to 0.76 at 4 MeV. The radiation protection efficiency (RPE) results showed that a thicker glass sample absorbs a higher number of photons, implying that lower radiation pass among the glass, increasing RPE. Also, the glass coded as TeLiZ6 has higher RPE than that of TeLiZ1 glass which suggests that at higher content of TeO2 (85 mol%), the more efficient the glass is at shielding the incoming photons. The linear attenuation coefficient (LAC) obtained by both methods (Geant4 and Phy-X/PSD showed a good agreement for all the glasses and at all investigated energies. The LAC indicates a strong energy dependence, especially at low energies. The LAC also increases as more TeO2 is added to the glasses. TeLiZ6 (85TeO2-15Li2O, ρ = 5.164 g/cm3) has the highest RPE and lowest TF, while TeLiZ1 (60TeO2-15Li2O-25ZnO, ρ = 4.976 g/cm3) has the lowest RPE and highest TF. The tenth value layer (TVL) was also determined and it was observed that TVL increases with increasing energy, reaching a maximum value at 10 MeV and varying between 12.919 and 13.808 cm. By contrast, the minimum TVL is reported at 15 keV and varies between 0.0106 and 0.0112 cm. The addition of TeO2 decreases the TVL, with TeLiZ6 having the least TVL.