Effect of dysprosium on the radiation-shielding features of SiO2–PbO–B2O3 glasses

In a variety of applications using ionizing radiation, it is essential to ensure the safety of both individuals and equipment. To this end, excellent radiation shielding materials, including glasses and rare earth elements, such as Dy2O3, are currently being researched. The goal of this study is to explore the effect of Dy2O3 on the radiation-shielding properties of the SiO2–PbO–B2O3–Dy2O3 glass system; for clarity, it is abbreviated as Dy-X. Dy2O3 is a good choice for use as a modifier in radiation shielding glasses since it has high density. Additionally, Dy2O3 has good thermal stability and can be added to glass matrices without substantially affecting their physical features. The influence of increasing the amount of Dy2O3 present in the glasses from 0 to 5 mol% on the linear attenuation coefficient (LAC) and effective atomic number (Z eff) was studied using glasses with five distinct compositions and densities. In order to achieve this, the Phy-X program was utilized. The results demonstrate that Dy5 (with a composition of 55B2O3–25PbO–20SiO2–5Dy2O3) has the highest LAC value of the prepared glasses, while Dy0 has the lowest. We investigated the influence of Dy2O3 on Z eff at 0.284 MeV. The results show that the Z eff values increase with increasing Dy2O3 content. The Z eff values were found to be 27.35, 27.94, 28.52, 29.09, 29.65, and 30.20 for Dy0, Dy1, Dy2, Dy3, Dy4, and Dy5, respectively. From the Z eff results, we observed that increasing the Dy2O3 content in the samples leads to an improvement in the shielding ability of the glass system. We compared the LAC of the Dy-X glasses with six glass systems at 0.662 MeV. All Dy0–Dy3 glasses have lower LAC values than all the TeO2–Li2O–ZnO glasses, but Dy4 has an LAC value greater than those of three of these glasses.