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The investigation in this article focused on the role of La2O3 on the optical, physical, and radiation protection performance of La2O3-based glasses in the form 21.5SiO2-58.5B2O3-(20−x)ZnO:xLa2O3, where x , ( 0 ≤ x ≤ 10 ) mol%. The melt-quenching process was used to synthesize the glasses under study. Density results increased from 3.174 to 4.754, the values of the ( E opt. indi ) increased from 2.996 to 3.313 and ( E opt. di) increased from 3.364 to 3.689. Several radiation shielding factors have been evaluated to study the attenuation abilities of the ZBSL glasses and for all of them, there is a positive correlation between the mean free path (MFP) values and the incoming photon energy. The effective atomic number, Zeff, values increased for all the energies when La2O3 was employed in place of ZnO. Therefore, of all the competing shielding glasses and regular concrete, ZBSL10 glass is an excellent choice for shielding applications from gamma rays and neutrons. This study should be very beneficial for the design of these glasses or for the fabrication of new glasses for radiation protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to investigate the impact of CeO2 content and particle size on the radiation shielding abilities of polydimethylsiloxane, also known as silicon rubber (SR). We prepared different SR samples with 10, 30, and 50% of micro and nano CeO2 and we measured the linear attenuation coefficient (LAC) for these samples. We found that the LAC of the SR increases by increasing the CeO2 and all prepared SR samples had higher LACs than the pure SR. We examined the effect of the size of the particles on the LAC and the results demonstrated that the LAC for nano CeO2 is higher than that of micro CeO2. We investigated the half value layer (HVL) for the prepared SR samples and the results revealed that the SR with 10% micro CeO2 had a greater HVL than the SR with 10% nano CeO2. The HVL results demonstrated that the SR containing nanoparticles had higher attenuation effectiveness than the SR with micro CeO2. We also prepared SR samples containing CeO2 in both sizes (i.e., micro and nano) and we found that the HVL of the SR containing both sizes was lower than the HVL of the SR with nano CeO2. The radiation protection efficiency (RPE) at 0.059 MeV for the SR with 10% micro and nano CeO2 was 94.2 and 95.6%, respectively, while the RPE of SR containing both sizes (5% micro CeO2 + 5% micro CeO2) was 96.1% at the same energy. The RPE results also indicated that the attenuation ability was improved when utilizing the micro and nano CeO2 as opposed to the micro CeO2 or nano CeO2 at 0.662, 1.173, and 1.333 MeV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The glasses with the composition (15-x) Na 2 O–45B 2 O 3 –20Bi 2 O 3 –20SiO 2 – x La 2 O 3 , where, x = (0 ≤ x ≥ 15) were successfully manufactured with a fast melt-quenching method. The density (ρ) of the glasses ranged from 4.913 to 6.497 g/cm3 and the molar volume (V m) ranged from 29.68 to 28.54 cm3/mol. FTIR spectroscopy to achieve further understanding of the structure of the synthesized glasses was performed. FT-IR spectra confirmed that the addition of La 2 O 3 modifies the glasses and broadens the absorption bands. The indirect and direct energy gaps increased as the amount of La 2 O 3 in the sample increased, according to UV–visible spectroscopic data. It was discovered that the refractive index ranged from 2.249 to 2.275. The study employed the DTA to explore the thermal features of synthesized glasses. The study employed the Phy-X/PSD code to explore the radiation-shielding properties of these samples. At low (E) of 0.015 MeV, the values of M A C were found to be 67.624, 67.739, 67.845, 68.032, and 68.193 cm2/g, while at (E) (15 MeV), which were 0.040, 0.041, 0.0413, 0.0418, and 0.042 cm2/g, in increasing order for the glasses BBSNLa-0, BBSNLa-2.5, BBSNLa-5, BBSNLa-10, and BBSNLa-15. Moreover, the values of μ m at (E) (15 MeV), which were 0.040, 0.041, 0.0413, 0.0418, and 0.042 cm2/g, for BBSNLa-0, BBSNLa-2.5, BBSNLa-5, BBSNLa-10, and BBSNLa-15 respectively. The combination of superior γ -radiation protection and favorable optical properties makes the BBSNLa-15 glass sample a promising candidate for applications in both optoelectronics and radiation protection. • The (15-x) Na 2 O–45B 2 O 3 –20Bi 2 O 3 –20SiO 2 – x La 2 O 3 , glasses were prepared. • Density increased from 4.913 to 6.497 g/cm3. • The glass thermal stability increased. • The BBSNLa-15 sample a promising candidate for applications in both optoelectronics and radiation protecting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]