Structural, optical, and gamma-ray shielding properties of a newly fabricated P2O5–B2O3–Bi2O3–Li2O–ZrO2 glass system

A new glass network consists of (40–x )P2 O5  + 30B2 O3  + 20Bi2 O3  + 10Li2 O + x ZrO2 where x is ranged between 0 and 5 mol% and was fabricated using a quenching method at temperature ranged between 1050° and 1380 °C. It has been observed that there is an increase in the ZrO2 substitution ratio with the glass melting temperature increased gradually. Moreover, by using the XRD spectrometer, it was verified the amorphous state of the glass samples. The absorbance and refractive index were measured experimentally using the UV–Vis–NIR spectrophotometer. Other essential optical parameters such as energy gap, Urbach energy, extinction coefficient, electrical polarizability, molar fraction, and dielectric constants were calculated based on the refractive index's experimental results. Moreover, the fabricated glass samples' ability to stand against the gamma energy and fast neutron were examined using simulation code MCNP-5 and the theoretical calculation by the latest Electron Photon Interaction Cross Section 2017 photoatomic library. The linear attenuation coefficient (LAC) exhibits a good performance when replacing the P2 O5 by ZrO2 contents. The LAC at gamma-ray energy (0.015 MeV) was enhanced from 207.112 to 274.831 cm−1 , increasing the ZrO2 replacing ratio between 0 and 5 mol %, respectively. The mass attenuation coefficients (µ m ) were found to have higher values for the library interpolation as compared to MCNP-5 simulations. The prepared glasses' ability to absorb the incoming fast neutron was diminished from 0.0251 to 0.0245 cm2  g−1 , increasing the ZrO2 substitution ratio between 0 and 5 mol %, respectively.