Enhancing the Radiation Shielding Properties in Er₂O₃-Modified Barium-Borotellurite Glasses

The radiation shielding properties of barium-bismuth-borotellurite glasses were explored via Eu-152 source-emitted gamma-ray energies. Specifically, the glasses have a composition of (21 + 2x)BaO-14Bi 2 O 3 -(60–3x)B 2 O 3 -5TeO 2 +xEr 2 O 3 , where x = 0, 1, 2, and 3 mol%. The glasses’ linear attenuation coefficient (LAC) was compared at 0.122 and 0.245 MeV, two energies where the photoelectric effect is dominant, and the results showed a positive correlation between the LAC and Er 2 O 3 and BaO content. When comparing the samples’ LAC values, at all energies the samples with Er 2 O 3 had larger LAC values than the sample with no Er 2 O 3 . The effective atomic number (Z eff ) differences of the samples with the most and least Er 2 O 3 was also tested, and a positive difference was found at all energies, due to Er having a greater atomic number than B. The Te5Er3 sample also had a lower tenth value layer than the Te5Er0 glass. The half value layer of the glasses were also compared against various other previously tested glasses, and the results demonstrated that those glasses with high BaO and Er 2 O 3 amounts performed very well against the other samples.