Impact of TeO2–B2O3 manipulation on physical, structural, optical and radiation shielding properties of Ho/Yb codoped mixed glass former borotellurite glass

Abstract

In this work, (75-x)B2O3-xTeO2-11Bi2O3–10Li2O-1Ho2O3-3Yb2O3 (x = 10–60 mol%) mixed glass former (MGF) glasses were prepared by using the melt-quenching method to investigate the effect of mixed glass former between B2O3 and TeO2 on the structural, optical and radiation shielding properties of glass. The amorphous nature of the glass samples was confirmed through XRD measurement. Optical ultraviolet–visible light (UV–Vis) spectroscopy revealed that the direct and indirect optical band gap (Eopt) decreased as TeO2 content increased except for the anomaly at x = 30 mol% due to the interchanging dominance of bridging oxygen (BO) and non-bridging oxygen (NBO) in the glass network. Both direct and indirect refractive indices, n posted an increment except for x = 30 mol% due to polarizability influence of BO and NBO. Urbach energy, Eu declined thus indicating lesser disorder and less defects on the glass structure. The radiation shielding properties of the glass samples were determined for 15 keV–15 MeV photon energy range by using Phy-X/PSD software. Atomic number-dependent parameters such as mass attenuation coefficient (MAC) and effective atomic number (Zeff) demonstrated an enhanced performances caused by higher Z of Te over B. Meanwhile, density-dependent parameters such as linear attenuation coefficient (LAC), mean-free path (MFP), half-value layer (HVL) and tenth-value layer (TVL) all exhibited an improvement over TeO2 concentration due to higher density data obtained.