Abstract
This work presents the facile synthesis of Ni, Mn, Zn, Cu and Co spinel ferrite nanocrystals via sol–gel auto-ignition and the investigation of their structural and gamma ray shielding characteristics. Experimentally, gamma ray shielding parameters are determined with different gamma ray sources and NaI(Tl) scintillation detector and theoretically via Monte-Carlo simulation (Geant4) as well as NIST-XCOM database. X-ray diffractograms elucidate the cubic spinel structure without any contaminating phases for all synthesized nano-ferrites. TEM results evidence the formation of ultrafine crystallites in nano-regime dimensions. Nanocrystalline spinel ferrites in pellet form have been exposed to gamma radiation from diverse sources by changing the radiation dose intensity. The comparative study of the linear attenuation coefficient, mass attenuation coefficient, total atomic cross section, total electronic cross section, effective atomic number, effective electron density and half value layer for manufactured spinel ferrites is carried out using NIST-XCOM and Geant4 at 122–1330 keV. Gamma ray energy absorption buildup factor (EABF) is investigated for five selected ferrites at 100 keV to 1500 keV incident photon energy and penetration depth from 1 to 40 mfp using geometric progression (G-P) fitting technique. EABF is found to be maximum at an intermediate region, mainly attributed to the Compton scattering process. Zinc ferrite exhibits a higher value of EABF among other ferrites, which mainly depends on the chemical composition of the material and crystallite size effect. The EABF is investigated as a function of penetration depth and is found to be maximum for a penetration depth of 40 mfp. Experimental and theoretical simulation results are found to be in good agreement. The Monte-Carlo simulation of radiation interaction with materials has evidenced to be an excellent approximation tool in exploring spinel ferrite performance in radiation atmosphere.
Highlights
Nanotechnology is one of the fastest growing scienti c elds with applications in many diverse areas, including electronics
From the Xray diffraction (XRD) pro le, the average crystallite sizes of the samples were calculated by the Debye–Scherrer formula based on the diffraction peak of the highly intense (311) plane.[40]
Zinc ferrite displays higher shieling parameter values as compared to the other spinel ferrites. This can be understood on the basis of the crystallite size effect; zinc ferrite possesses a lower crystallite size ($32.31 nm) compared to nickel ferrite ($36.25 nm), manganese ferrite ($33.87) copper ferrite ($39.75 nm) and cobalt ferrite ($52.45 nm)
Summary
Spinel ferrites of nano-dimensions are technologically trending materials due to their distinct electromagnetic characteristics.[3,4,5] Spinel ferrites (M–Fe2O4) have several applications such as in transformers, inductors, capacitors, isolators, circulators, gyrators, phase shi ers, recon gurable antennas, spintronics memory devices, wireless mobile communication, and biomedical instrumentation.[6,7,8,9,10]. D. Raut et al have investigated the gamma ray energy absorption and exposure buildup aspects of Co/Zn/Ni/ Mg spinel ferrites utilizing G-P tting method in the energy range of 0.015–15.00 MeV up to the penetration depth of 40 mfp.[26]. Monte-Carlo simulation is found to be the most effective tool to determine the radiation interaction parameters in diverse kinds of materials, compounds and composites for shielding properties. The impact of direct ionizing radiation on spinel ferrite materials' shielding characteristics has been explored by using MonteCarlo simulation (Geant4) and NIST-XCOM database. The obtained radiological data can be very much useful for elucidating the gamma ray shielding characteristics of spinel ferrite electronic materials
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