Theoretical and experimental validation gamma shielding properties of B2O3-ZnO-MgO-Bi2O3 glass system

In the present work, we fabricated a series of six glasses to be utilized in the field of radiation shielding application. Glasses have been synthesized using a melt-quenching ordinary technique. In this work, we investigated the structural properties of these glasses using Raman spectroscopy. Moreover, optical properties have been studied in the present work. The radiation attenuation ability for the present samples was also investigated and measured using transmission geometry between 81 and 964.1 keV. The mass attenuation coefficient was measured and the results were validated by the WinXcom program. Also, radiation protection efficiency (RPE) was evaluated and discussed in terms of photon energy and Bi2O3 concentration. From RPE curve, we found that the fabricated glasses can be used as effective shielding materials especially for the low energies (81-383 keV). The half value layer also was calculated and the results of this parameter showed that S6 (contains 60 mol% of Bi2O3) has the higher probability of the interaction with gamma photons, leading to less number of photons transmitted this sample and thus better photon attenuator.