A Significant Role of Tb2O3 on the Optical Properties and Radiation Shielding Performance of Ga2O3–B2O3–Al2O3–GeO2 Glasses

This research article focuses on the significant role of Tb2O3 content on the optical properties and radiation shielding performance of Ga2O3–B2O3–Al2O3–GeO2 glasses named as GBAGT1, GBAGT2, GBAGT3, and GBAGT4 for Tb2O3 of 14, 18, 22 and 25 mol%, respectively. The findings of the optical study indicate that the optical dielectric constant of the present samples increased from 1.85 to 2.06 as the Tb2O3 content increased from 14 to 25 mol%. The results of the radiation shielding confirm that increasing Tb3+-dopant content in GBAGT4 increased its specific gamma ray constant (Γ) values over all other glass samples in the whole energy region. With increasing electron energy, the mass stopping power decreased for all samples and reached the minimum 1.372 and 1.327 (MeV cm2/g) for BGAGT1, BGAGT4, respectively, at 1 MeV electron energy. For a beam of neutrons of 0.1 meV, the total cross section in GBAGT1, GBAGT2, GBAGT3, and GBAGT4 was 294.54, 312.88, 317.24 and 311.69 (cm−1), respectively. The smallest MFP values of GBAGT4 glass sample in all energy regions confirm the superior shielding performance of the studied glass sample among other shielding materials namely traditional concrete and commercial polymers/glasses.