Investigations of gamma ray shielding properties of TeO₂-MoO₃-Nb₂O₅ glasses

This study provides an analysis of glass composed of TeO₂, MoO₃, and Nb₂O₅, focusing on its gamma ray shielding capabilities. The assessment of these capabilities was conducted using Geant4 simulations, which evaluated parameters such as the mass attenuation coefficient (MAC), transmission fractions, effective atomic number, half-value layer (HVL), and exposure buildup factor for photon energies ranging from 0.015 to 10 MeV. The comparison between the theoretical values obtained from Phy-X software and the simulated values from Geant4 revealed a deviation of less than 2%, indicating strong agreement across all glass samples at the examined energy levels. The MAC values for the selected samples varied from 35.57 to 0.034 cm²/g, with glasses G-2 and G-3 demonstrating the highest values. The results for the linear attenuation coefficient (LAC) indicated that as photon energy increased, the ability of photons to penetrate the glass also increased. At 662 keV, the LAC values of the tellurite glass were compared with those of lead glasses, revealing that G-3 and G-2 exhibited attenuation results comparable to 20% Pb glass. The analysis of the HVL indicated that the selected glasses showed values almost equal to other tellurite glasses containing lead and tungsten, highlighting their effective performance. Additionally, the findings demonstrated that the transmission factor rises with increasing photon energy. The radiation shielding efficiency results indicated that thicker glass samples absorb more photons, resulting in reduced radiation transmission and enhanced radiation protection effectiveness (RPE). The findings show that the radiation shielding efficiency for energies below 150 kV is close to 100%. The glasses made from TeO₂, MoO₃, and Nb₂O₅ are considered highly promising for applications requiring effective shielding against high-energy photons, while also maintaining high radiation shielding efficiency.