A Closer Look at the Fabrication of Iron(II)-Doped Borate Glasses and their Structural, Optical, and Gamma-Ray Shielding Characteristics

Six samples of iron(II)-doped borate glasses with chemical composition 75B 2 O 3 -10BaO 3 -15PbO- x Fe 2 O 3 : x = 0.0 (Fe-0.0)–0.5 (Fe-0.5) mol.% in steps of 0.1 mol.% were fabricated via the conventional melt quench route. The structure, physical, optical absorbance, and energy gap were investigated. Gamma ( γ )-ray attenuating characteristics of Fe glass blocks were explored via the XCOM and Phy-X/PSD programs and Geant4 simulation code. The color of Fe glasses was changed from yellow to brown with the addition of Fe 2 O 3 . The amorphous state of the Fe glass systems was detected by x-ray diffraction. Densities were found to increase linearly from 5.09154 g cm −3 to 5.92731 g cm −3 , and the molar volume ( V m ) exhibited identical behavior with a positive slope. The V m was found to be 20.707