Influence of various metal oxides (PbO, Fe2O3, MgO, and Al2O3) on the mechanical properties and γ-ray attenuation performance of zinc barium borate glasses

The current work aims to fabricate metal oxide-doped (PbO, Fe2O3, MgO, and Al2O3, each of which boasts a purity of 99%) zinc barium borate glasses through the melt quenching technique at the 1000 °C melting temperature. The results showed that adding 5 mol.% of metal oxides PbO, Fe2O3, Al2O3, and MgO increases the density of the zinc barium borate glasses. Additionally, the fabricated glasses' mechanical properties were determined based on the Makishima-Mackenzie model, which proved that the highest mechanical properties were achieved for glasses doped with Al2O3 compounds. The mechanical moduli for the glasses doped with Al2O3 reach 80.95 GPa (Young), 59.90 GPa (bulk), 31.75 GPa (shear), and 102.23 GPa (longitudinal). Additionally, the Al2O3-doped glasses' microhardness reaches 4.77 GPa. Moreover, estimation of the fabricated glasses' gamma-ray shielding capacity utilized Monte Carlo simulation. The highest linear attenuation coefficients are 29.132, 19.906, 19.243, and 18.923 cm−1 obtained at 0.033 MeV for glasses dopped by PbO, Fe2O3, MgO, and Al2O3, respectively. Therefore, glasses doped with 5 mol.% of PbO have high gamma-ray shielding capacities followed by glasses doped by Fe2O3.