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

This study aimed to investigate the effect of BaF₂ 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 60TeO₂-20PbO-(20-x)ZnO-xBaF₂ 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 BaF₂ are in good agreement with the results of XCOM at all energies. The addition of BaF₂ 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 BaF₂ content, the HVL value and MFP value of the glass decreased, and the Z_eff value and RCS increased, indicating that the addition of BaF₂ enhanced the radiation-shielding performance of the glass.