The effect of WO3 on the optical and radiation shielding properties of zinc-lead-borate glass

Abstract

A series of zinc-lead-tungsten-borate glass with composition 60B2O3+Pb3O4+(20-x)ZnO + xWO3 (where x = 1, 2, 3, 4 and 7 mol%) have been synthesized via melt-quench method. The synthesized glass's physical, optical, and radiation shielding properties were investigated. Adding 7 mol% WO3 slightly reduced the molar mass from 189.68 to 184.79 g mol−1 and increased the density from 5.21 to 6.37 g cm−3. For optical parameters, the effects of increasing 7 mol% WO3 decreased the refractive index by 3.80% (2.10–2.02) and increased the band gap energy by 10% (2.78–3.06). Meanwhile, the transmission coefficient rises from 77% to 79%, and the metallization increases from 0.46 to 0.49 as 7 mol% WO3 is added. The radiation shielding performance of the fabricated glasses was investigated. The computed mass attenuation coefficients (MAC) using Phy-X/PSD show a decreased trend with increased photon energies at a range of 0.015–15.000 MeV. An increasing MAC was observed with increasing WO3 content, for example, 77.406, 77.842, 77.694, and 77.925 cm2 g−1, respectively, for 1WZBPb, 2WZBPb, 4WZBPb, and 7WZBPb glass samples at 0.015 MeV. The 7WZBPb glass sample has a slightly lower HVL of 0.029 compared to 1WZBPb, which is 0.037 at 0.1 MeV. A similar trend was also observed for the mean free path, which is 0.88 for 7WZBPb and 1.05 for 1WZBPb. We found that the investigated WZBPb glasses had excellent optical and shielding properties and could be promising candidates as shielding materials against gamma radiation.