Gamma, neutron, and charged particles shielding features and structural properties for barium tellurite glass modified by various oxides

A series of BaO–TeO₂ glasses modified with different modifiers of PbO, ZnO, ZrO₂, K₂CO₃, and CdO was fabricated by melt quench technique. The thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and physical properties were employed to explore the samples’ structure. The XRD confirmed the amorphous nature of all glass samples. The FTIR results showed two peaks attributed to overlapping between asymmetrical stretching vibrations of the TeO₃ trigonal structural units and stretching vibrations of Te–O in TeO₄. Based on TGA results, the BTCd sample appeared highest thermal stability, followed by BTPb, BTK, BTZr, and BTZn at high temperatures. At the same time, the BTPb sample recorded the highest density, followed by BTCd, BTZn, BTZr, and BTK. On another side, the shielding properties were computed theoretically by using Phy-X. The BTPb sample was superior in all shielding properties.