LiKBPbX glasses: Physical, structural and gamma ray shielding competence

Abstract

The LiKBPbX glasses have been fabricated with the standard melt quenching methodology. The density and molar volume of glass systems change from 2.2057 g/cm3 to 2.9427 g/cm3 and 70.569–101.283 cm3 respectively with the increase in dopant concentration of PbO mol%. The Oxygen packing density (OPD) of prepared glasses is decreased from 75.01 to 58.108, whereas the optical basicity is increased from 0.668 to 0.772. The oxygen molar volume (OMV) of prepared samples varies from 13.33 cm3 to 17.21 cm3. The XRD spectrum represents two broad humps around 20–300 and 40–500 and absence of any sharp peak confirm that the structures of glasses are amorphous in nature. There are five bands observed in FTIR spectra from 400 to 600, 600–800, 800–1200, 1200–1500 and 1500–1800 cm−1 respectively. These bands are assigned due to the various bending and symmetric as well as asymmetric stretching vibrations of the groups present in the glassy network. The gamma ray shielding behavior has been studied for the energies from 0.015 MeV to 15 MeV. LiKBPb20 glass is the most space-efficient gamma shield.