Structural and physical characterization study on synthesized tellurite (TeO2) and germanate (GeO2) glass shields using XRD, Raman spectroscopy, FLUKA and PHITS

Abstract

Abstract Using the well-known melt-quenching method, samples with the addition of 0.5 wt% of Nd2O3 to the following compositions (in wt.%) were prepared: 85TeO2–15ZnO (TZ), 85.0TeO2-12.95ZnO-2.05Al2O3 (TZA), 40GeO2-60PbO (GP), 39.60GeO2-59.41PbO-0.99Al2O3 (GPA1), 39.22GeO2-58.82PbO-1.96Al2O3 (GPA2). X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements were performed to confirm the amorphous nature of the samples (Miniflex Desktop X-Ray/Rigaku at 534 nm). Raman spectra were recorded in the 300 - 1100 cm−1 wavenumber range using a Witec Alpha 330R spectrometer with an Ar+ laser (514.5 nm, 150 mW) in a back-scattering geometry, to determine vibrational modes of all the samples. Finally, an extended caracterization on nuclear radiation attenuation properties of glass samples were done using FLUKA Monte Carlo code and PHITS code. The addition of Al2O3 do not cause a large influence, as it occurs to tellurite glasses prepared in platinum crucible. However the band centered at 780 cm−1 related to Ge–O and Ge-O-Ge symmetric stretching vibrations in GeO4 tetrahedral units presents intensity increase and a slighlty shift to smaller wavenumber with the addition of Al2O3. The ranges of mean free path values for the glasses were reported as 0.94–3.26, 0.97–3.35, 1.00–3.43, 1.62–3.73, and 1.65–3.80 cm for GP, GPA1, GPA2, TZ, and TZA respectively. The multi-results showed that GP has promising and suitable material properties as a candidate material for nuclear radiation shielding aims.