A Closer Look at the Fabrication of Iron(II)-Doped Borate Glasses and their Structural, Optical, and Gamma-Ray Shielding Characteristics

Six samples of iron(II)-doped borate glasses with chemical composition 75B(2)O(3)-10BaO(3)-15PbO-xFe(2)O(3): x = 0.0 (Fe-0.0)-0.5 (Fe-0.5) mol.% in steps of 0.1 mol.% were fabricated via the conventional melt quench route. The structure, physical, optical absorbance, and energy gap were investigated. Gamma (gamma)-ray attenuating characteristics of Fe glass blocks were explored via the XCOM and Phy-X/PSD programs and Geant4 simulation code. The color of Fe glasses was changed from yellow to brown with the addition of Fe2O3. The amorphous state of the Fe glass systems was detected by x-ray diffraction. Densities were found to increase linearly from 5.09154 g cm(-3) to 5.92731 g cm(-3), and the molar volume (V-m) exhibited identical behavior with a positive slope. The V-m was found to be 20.707 < V-m < 20.859 cm(3)/mol as Fe2O3 content in the samples was increased from 0.0 mol.% to 0.5 mol.%. Values of optical gap energy were 2.82 eV, 2.75 eV, 2.58 eV, 2.46 eV, 2.40 eV, and 2.36 eV for Fe-0.0-Fe-0.5 glass samples, respectively. The K-absorption edges for Pb-82(207) and Ba-56(137) were detected at 88.0045 and 37.4406 keV, respectively, while the L3 edge for Pb-82(207) was detected at 13.0352 keV. Results showed that Fe glass samples have a higher capacity to attenuate gamma-rays compared to commercial glasses (RS-360).