Optoelectronic and Gamma Ray Attenuation Properties of Ore-based Bi and Sn-doped Borosilicate Glasses

Abstract

Progress in glass science has given rise to innovative functional glasses, unlocking significant applications for creating cutting-edge materials such as solid-state batteries, solar cells, optical reinforcement, and medical technologies. In this study, rice husk silica, Bismuth (Bi) and Tin (Sn) oxide ores were used to fabricate a novel glass series. The electrical conductivity (i.e., dielectric constant) of the glasses increased with the dopant’s gravimetric levels. The novel glass series also possesses good optical non-linearity with metallisation criteria ranging from 0.35 to 0.40, which points to a novel non-linear optical material. The non-bridging oxygen content in the new glasses exceeds the bridging oxygen, indicating high polarisation. The transmission coefficient decreased with increasing dopant concentration from 0.76 to 0.75, while the reflection loss decreased from 0.37 to 0.38. For the Caesium-137 energy, GS6 has a minimum HVL of ∼5.02 cm, which is ∼20% lower than that of commercial Pb/Ba glass. For the two energies, GS6 has the least MFP, suggesting that the addition of dopants improved the efficiency of the glass attenuation. Process capability analysis based on Caesium-137 (661.7 keV) and overall performance analysis of the fabricated glass series revealed that GS3 glass (15 wt.% dopant) is the optimal material, even outperforming the commercial Pb/Ba glass. Although Cobalt-60 (1,253 keV) yielded comparable outcomes, concentrations beyond 15 wt.% in GS3 showed marginal enhancements in the photon attenuation parameters of the glasses. Hence, the fabricated GS3 and the circular synthesis method of the glasses are cost-effective for low-energy gamma/X-ray shielding. The percentage deviation between the experimental data for MAC and that of Monte Carlo simulations for Cs-137 and Co-60 energies are both within 10%, which validates the methods of this paper.