The role of Tb2O3 in enhancement the properties of the La2O3–P2O5 glass system: Mechanical and radiation shielding study

Abstract The substitution of La2O3 by Tb2O3 was studied for glass samples with a chemical composition described by: 75P2O5 + (25 − x) La2O3 + xTb2O3, where x = 5, 10, 15, 20 mol%. The mechanical properties were predicted via the Makishima–Mackenzie model. The study demonstrated that when increasing the Tb2O3 content from 5 to 20 mol%, the elastic moduli of the glasses decreased, while the dissociation energy, packing density, and micro-hardness increased. In addition, the radiation shielding properties were studied using the MCNP5 code, which was utilized to simulate the linear attenuation coefficient (LAC) of the investigated samples. Furthermore, the mass attenuation coefficients (MAC) of the glasses were determined. The highest MAC was reported for the sample with 20 mol% of Tb2O3 and decreased from 0.358 to 0.0515 cm2/g between 0.184 and 1.408 MeV. Furthermore, the effective atomic number (Zeff), equivalent atomic number (Zeq), exposure buildup factor (EBF), and the energy absorption buildup factor (EABF) of the glasses were calculated utilizing BXCOM software. The substitution of La2O3 by Tb2O3 was revealed to enhance the shielding features of the TLP samples.