Effect of doping of Ce4+/3+ on optical, strength and shielding properties of (0.5-x)TeO2-0.25MoO-0.25Bi2O3-xCeO2 glasses

The paper considers prospects of application of dopant CeO2 with different concentration on efficiency of gamma radiation shielding by telluride glasses of type (0.5-x)TeO2-0.25MoO-0.25Bi2O3-xCeO2. As a method for preparing glass, a solid-phase synthesis method was used, which includes grinding the initial mixtures and then sintering in a muffle furnace at a temperature of 1100 °C for 5 h. The amorphous nature of the glasses was confirmed by X-ray phase analysis. Using energy dispersion and X-ray phase analysis methods, physical structural parameters such as density, porosity, oxygen packing density were determined. Analysis of the change in these parameters showed that in the case of an increase in the concentration of dopant CeO2, an increase in glass density and a decrease in porosity were observed due to compaction of the structure and a change in elemental composition. Using the UV–Vis spectroscopy method, the dependence of the change in optical characteristics on the concentration of the dopant was determined, which showed that an increase in the concentration of the dopant leads to a decrease in the gap width by 40–44% compared to the initial values. By analyzing the optical spectra, it was found that an increase in the concentration of the dopant leads to the appearance of additional absorption bands that are associated with a change in the concentration of Ce4+/3+ ions. It was found that in the case of gamma-quantum with an energy of 136 keV, the attenuation efficiency with an increase in the dopant concentration to 0.20 and 0.25 increases by more than 1.5–1.8 times. At the same time, an increase in gamma-quantum energy leads to a decrease in absorption efficiency at the same glass thickness for all tests, and in the case of an energy of 1274 keV, the maximum absorption is not more than 40%. However, in the case of initial glasses and doped with a dopant concentration of 0.05, the absorption efficiency does not exceed 25%, which is rather low shielding values. During tests for resistance to degradation and aging, it was found that doping leads to a significant increase in crack resistance and a decrease in glass degradation, it was also found that doping CeO2 leads to an increase in resistance to degradation by more than 1.5–3 times depending on the concentration of the dopant.