Physical, structural, optical and gamma ray shielding behavior of (20+x) PbO - 10 BaO - 10 Na2O - 10 MgO - (50-x) B2O3 glasses

Glass samples of composition (20 + x) PbO - 10 BaO - 10 Na2O - 10 MgO - (50-x) B2O3 (x = 0, 5, 10, 15 and 20 mol%) have been prepared by melt quenching technique. Density, molar volume, average boron-boron separation, ion concentration, polaron radius, inter-nuclear distance, field strength, oxygen packing density and oxygen molar volume have been determined to study the physical properties of the glasses. The presence of no sharp peak in the XRD spectra confirms the amorphous nature of the glasses. The structural properties of these glasses have been investigated using Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopic techniques. The direct and indirect band gap energies, refractive index, dielectric constant, optical dielectric constant, molar fraction, reflection loss and metallization have been also investigated from the UV-VIS spectra. Besides, the radiation attenuation features for the prepared glasses have been calculated using XCOM program. The mass attenuation coefficient values and effective atomic numbers are found to increase with an increase in the PbO content. The radiation shielding study revealed that Pb40B30 and Pb20B50 glasses have the lowest and highest values of mean free path and half value layer values. This indicates that the Pb40B30 glass has the highest photon shielding competence.