Investigation of optical, mechanical, and shielding properties of zirconia glass capsule

摘要

Five new developed ZrO_2 doped borotellurite glass with nominal composition of 60B_2O_3 -10Na_2O-(10-x) CaO-20TeO_2 -xZrO_2 (x = 0, 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 mol.), were prepared by melt-quenching process. Their amorphous nature, surface properties, and element distribution were investigated. Optical measurements from ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis/NIR) spectrophotometer reveal that increasing the ZrO_2 content leads to a decrease in both the indirect optical bandgap and Urbach energy, and to an increase in the indirect refractive index. Makishima_Mackenzie's approach was employed to calculate theoretical elastic moduli where Vickers micro-hardness was measured experimentally. It was shown that increasing the content of ZrO_2 enhanced the micro-hardness and elastic characteristics. Gamma shielding characteristics were estimated using Phy-X/PSD software. Regarding radiation shielding performance, samples with higher zirconia content have higher radiation absorption ability. These results suggest that doping borotellurite glass with ZrO_2 would improve glass properties to be a good candidate for optoelectronic applications, fiber optics, and/or gamma radiation shielding capsule.