Synthesis of transparent binary germanate glasses and determination of their shielding performance against the gamma radiation

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this study, we synthesized binary germanate glasses with compositions of GeO2 – Bi2O3, GeO2 – PbF2, and GeO2 – V2O5. The traditional melt-quenching method was used for glass synthesis. The radiation shielding properties of the synthesized samples were calculated theoretically and measured experimentally as well. A narrow-beam transmission geometry, which uses a NaI(Tl) detector, was employed to measure linear attenuation coefficient, mass attenuation coefficient, half-value layer, and effective atomic number values of the glasses at gamma-ray energies of 662, 1173, and 1332 keV and, 137Cs, and 60Co radioactive point sources were used to produce gamma-ray photons of these energies. Additionally, all the above parameters were also calculated theoretically using the WinXCOM software in the 0.015-15 MeV energy range to confirm the accuracy of the measurements. A good agreement between theoretical and experimental findings was observed. It was also found that the increase in the concentrations of Bi2O3, PbF2, and V2O5 network modifiers improved the radiation shielding capacity of synthesized germanate glasses. The results revealed that the GeBi30 glass has superior shielding properties among the synthesized germanate glasses.