Physical, thermal and optical properties of Cd-doped phosphate based glass system

Abstract

In order to explore the effect of ZnO substitution by CdO on the physical, thermal and optical properties of zinc phosphate glasses, series of glasses with chemical compositions of 50 P2O5- (50–x) ZnO-x CdO where, (x = 0, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 mol %) were prepared using the melt quenching technique and coded as PZnCdx. A linear increase in the density (ρg) from 3.06 to 3.86 gm/cm3 with CdO was recorded. However, the molar volume (Vm) was found to have the opposite behavior. Values of optical energy gap, Eopt were estimated using UV–Vis spectra and found to slightly decrease from 3.68 to 3.2 eV with increase CdO contents. Urbach energy, ΔE for the investigated glasses was found to increase and its value varies between 0.29 and 0.51 eV, depending on CdO and ZnO contents. Both the refractive index (n) and the optical conductivity calculated for the samples increased with increasing ZnO substitution by CdO contents. Sample PZnCd50 showed the highest values of mass and linear attenuation, mean free path and effective atomic number and lowest half value layer among the prepared glasses and other commercial materials as glass window and ordinary concrete. Results obtained reflected the reasonable effect of ZnO substitution by CdO on the zinc phosphate glasses and implies that these types especially PZnCd50 have superior X and γ-ray attenuation capability and can be candidate to many applications.