Review—Radiation Shielding Properties of Tellurite and Silicate Glass

Abstract

Silicate glass is one of the popular radiation shielding materials due to its abundance on Earth. However, due to fabrication simplicity, tellurite-based optical glass materials became the primary glass network forming, garnering great scientific and technological relevance for their future uses. Previous studies stated that the silicate and tellurite glass system might be employed in shielding applications, with metal oxide concentrations balanced with SiO2 and TeO2 content. The inclusion of SiO2 and TeO2 in the glass composition reduces the impact of radiation. In electron radiation, electron interaction activities with glass are more substantial in the low electron energy area. Meanwhile, the proton attenuation factors of the glass samples are smaller than the electrons. There is no discernible difference in the fast neutron effective removal cross-section (ΣR) values of the glass samples in neutron radiation. In the studies of tellurite glasses for gamma radiation shielding, the photon interaction parameters change as a function of material density. The measurements show that adding TeO2 to glass samples improved the gamma protection characteristics of the glasses. This review aims to explain the various material compositions and discuss a more in-depth analysis of radiation shielding properties in the silicate and tellurite glasses.