Doping impacts of La₂O₃ on physical, structural, optical and radiation shielding properties of (30-x)BaCO₃–30TiO₂–40SiO₂-xLa₂O₃ (0 ≤ x ≤ 6) glasses for optoelectronic applications

Abstract

Herein, synthesis of novel barium silicate glasses doped with La2O3 in the system (30-x)BaCO3–30TiO2–40SiO2-xLa2O3, BTSL (0 ≤ x ≤ 6) via fast melt-quenching technique was carried out. Further, to confirm the amorphous behaviour of prepared glass samples, x-ray diffraction (XRD) and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) were carried out. The density of all prepared glasses was determined using Archimedes’ principle and found to be in an increasing manner. To investigate the doping influence of La2O3 on the glasses, few more physical properties like molar volume (Vm), polaron radius (rp), and field strength (Fs) were also studied and found to be increased due to incorporation of La2O3 into BTSL glassy system. Moreover, to explore the structural, functional, and bonding mechanism of the glasses, FTIR, Raman and 29Si-MAS-ssNMR spectroscopies were performed. Further, to investigate the numerous optical parameters, UV–visible spectroscopy was executed, and energy band gaps were found in the decreasing manner as increasing the La2O3 concentrations. Additionally, to study the optoelectronic properties, refractive indices (η) and optical dielectric constant (ε) were determined and revealed the increasing behaviour and found suitable material for optoelectronic devices. Furthermore, the radiation shielding parameters, mass attenuation coefficient (MAC), linear attenuation coefficient (LAC), etc were determined using Phy-X/PSD software and these parameters are increased owing to the doping of La2O3. Among all fabricated glasses, (30-x)BaCO3–30TiO2−40SiO2−6La2O3, BTS6L glass exhibited outstanding optical and radiation attenuation properties; can be tailored for the fabrication of optoelectronic and radiation protection devices.