Study on Radiation Shielding Properties of New Barium-Doped Zinc Tellurite Glass

This study aimed to investigate the effect of BaF(2) on the radiation-shielding ability of lead telluride glass. A physical radioactive source was used to estimate the mass attenuation coefficient (μ(m)) of the 60TeO(2)-20PbO-(20-x)ZnO-xBaF(2) glass system (where x = 1,2,3,5,6,7,9 mol%). We tested the μ(m) values at seven energies (0.059, 0.081, 0.122, 0.356, 0.662, 1.173, 1.332 MeV). To determine the accuracy of the obtained results, we compared the experimental data with the data calculated using the XCOM software. The experimental values obtained for the selected lead telluride glasses at different concentrations of BaF(2) are in good agreement with the results of XCOM at all energies. The addition of BaF(2) increased the μ(m) value of the sample. At the same time, the half-value layer (HVL), mean free path (MFP), effective atomic number (Z(eff)), and fast neutron removal cross-section (RCS) of the glass were studied. With the increase in the BaF(2) content, the HVL value and MFP value of the glass decreased, and the Z(eff) value and RCS increased, indicating that the addition of BaF(2) enhanced the radiation-shielding performance of the glass.