Optical and physical behaviours of newly developed germanium-tellurium (GeTe) glasses: a comprehensive experimental and in-silico study with commercial glasses and ordinary shields

In this study, synthesis and determination of physical, optical, and radiation shielding properties of glasses based on TeO 2 and GeO 2 were investigated. Different compositions are studied as follows (wt%): 87.5TeO 2 -7.4ZnO-2.6Na 2 O-2.0GeO 2 (Q2), 41.5TeO 2 -20.4GeO 2 -17.2BaO-20.9Nb 2 O 5 (Q3) and 33.4TeO 2 -33.3PbO-33.3GeO 2 (T1). In addition to experimental methods, Monte Carlo algorithm MCNPX and the Phy-X/ PSD program are used to explore the nuclear shielding characteristics across a broad energy range of 0.015 to 15 MeV. Our findings showed that T1 sample presents the best performance for radiation shielding. T1 sample exhibits the highest linear attenuation coefficient (), mass attenuation coefficient (m) and effective atomic number (Zeff) values and the lowest half value layer (HVL), mean free path (MFP), energy absorption build-up factor (EABF) and exposure build-up factor (EBF) values among all the samples studied. To evaluate the superior sample’s gamma-ray attenuation capabilities, the HVL values of the T1 sample were compared to those of many shielding glasses available in the literature, commercial SCHOTT glasses, and various types of concrete. The results showed that T1 glass has excellent nuclear radiation shielding ability among the other fabricated glass samples. Consequently, it can be concluded that the combination of high-concentration PbO is an effective synergetic tool for combining optical and radiation characteristics of TeO 2 glasses.