Investigations on electrical, optical and thermal properties of Yb2O3 doped-borate glasses: radiation-shielding features using the Phy-X software

The addition of Yb₂O₃ cations to borate glasses significantly improves their electrical and optical properties. The capability of glass composition makes it further useful for a huge range of applications. The electrical properties, optical properties, XRD and DSC analysis have been studied. Furthermore, Yb₂O₃ doped borate glasses are synthesized using melt quenching technique. All glasses are demonstrated to be completely amorphous. The glasses exhibits two glass transition temperatures, which nearly increase with Yb₂O₃-addition. The DC conduction activation energies are between 0.7845 and 0.7097 eV. The conductivity reduces with incorporation of Yb₂O₃. The most important optical parameters including direct and indirect band gap are estimated. The maximum and minimum energy gaps are found 2.84 and 2.79 eV at Yb₂O₃ content 0 and 6 mol%, respectively, but the band gap increases with the addition of Yb₂O₃. There is also an ultraviolet limit from 246 to 381 nm, which the highest transparency is observed in the both ranges visible and infrared for samples glasses. With increasing Yb₂O₃ content, the transmittance decreases up to Yb₂O₃ = 7.5 mol% and then increases. The Phy-X program is utilized to calculate the properties of the shielding versus gamma radiation, the mass attenuation coefficient (MAC), half-value layer (HVL), linear attenuation coefficient (LAC), the effective atomic number (Z_eff) and the mean free path (MFP). The optimal radiation shielding properties are observed for the glass containing 7.5 mol%of Yb₂O₃.