Lanthanum-doped zinc borate glasses: fabrication, structural analysis, thermal properties, and gamma radiation shielding performance

Zinc borate glasses with a composition formula of (60-m)B₂O₃–40ZnO–mLa₂O₃ (m = 0, 3, 6, 9, 12, and 15 mol%) were synthesized via the melt-quenching technique for the purpose of investigating the effects of La₂O₃ incorporation on their structural, thermal, and radiation shielding properties. Amorphous structures for all samples (coded as ZBLa0 to ZBLa15) were confirmed using X-ray diffraction and Differential thermal analysis. Incorporating La₂O₃ significantly influenced the glass matrix, increasing density, molar volume, thermal expansion and the glass transition, while decreasing the crystallization peak temperature and thermal stability. These effects highlight La₂O₃'s role as a network modifier that depolymerizes the glass structure, as indicated by shifts in FT-IR bands and altered vibrational modes. Radiation shielding properties improve markedly with La₂O₃ addition, as evidenced by increased mass attenuation coefficients and effective atomic numbers, making the glass with 15 mol% La₂O₃ (ZBLa15) particularly effective at gamma-ray attenuation across a wide photon energy range. These findings suggest that La₂O₃-doped zinc borate glasses are highly suitable for applications requiring enhanced radiation shielding alongside reliable thermal performance.