Synthesis, structure, physical, dielectric characteristics, and gamma-ray shielding competences of novel P₂O₅–Li₂O–ZnO–CdO glasses

Newly phosphate-based glasses containing cadmium with the form 40P₂O₅–10Li₂O–(50–x)ZnO–xCdO (x = 0, 10, 20, 30, 40 mol%) were synthesized via a conventional melt quenching procedure. The synthesized glasses were coded as PLZC00–PLZC40. The nature structure, physical, FTIR measurements, dielectric properties, and gamma-ray shielding competences of these glasses have been investigated. Dielectric spectroscopy parameters of investigated glass sample were measured throughout frequency range from 50 Hz to 5 MHz. XRD measurements confirmed that the synthesized glasses were in non-crystalline nature. Density increased with the increase of CdO concentration in mol% from 3.0949 g/cm³ for PLZC00 glasses (free with CdO) to 3.4989 g/cm³ for PLZC40 glasses (with 40 mol% of CdO). The dielectric constant \(\varepsilon^{\prime}\) was decreased for CdO concentration up to 20 mol% referring to creation cross-linkage with other elements, while the bonding defect is formed for CdO concentration greater than 20 mol% and increases the \(\varepsilon^{\prime}\) value. The PLZC40 glass sample possesses higher linear attenuation coefficient (LAC) values than the other prepared samples. Consequently, PLZC40 glass sample achieved the minimum half value layer (HVL) and mean free path (MFP) values among all PLZC-prepared glasses. The highest Z_eff values are found around 0.03 MeV and varied from 43.82 to 32.78, while the lowest Z_eff values were found at 1.5 MeV and varied between 17.16 and 12.19. The deviation which was found between Z_eff values may be due to the difference in the composition of each prepared sample. Finally, one can conclude that the PLZC40 glass sample (with 40 mol% of CdO) has the best shielding capacity among all other studied glasses.