BaO-B₂O₃-TiO₂ optical glass for radiation shielding

Abstract The glasses of x BaO- x B 2 O 3 -(100-2 x )TiO 2 ternary system ( x = 40, 42 and 45) were fabricated and their fundamental optical and radiation shielding properties were investigated in this work. BaO-B 2 O 3 -TiO 2 glass exhibited good transparency and a high refractive index depending on its glass composition indicating the possibility to be applied as optical glass. In order to estimate the radiation shielding property, the mass and linear attenuation constant was numerically evaluated and the Pb-equivalent at 662 keV was experimentally measured. The linear attenuation constant and Pb-equivalent of BaO-B 2 O 3 -TiO 2 glass were compared with various types of heavy metal oxide glasses developed for radiation shielding. It was confirmed that the radiation shielding ability of BaO-B 2 O 3 -TiO 2 glass was reasonably high as expected from the density. These results pointed out that BaO-B 2 O 3 -TiO 2 glass is a promising material for practical radiation shielding optical glass.