Radiation attenuation properties of bioactive glasses doped with NiO

This paper focuses on the evaluation of the radiation attenuation properties of 15CaF2-10CaO-5B2O3-(65-x)P2O5-xNiO-5BaO (where 0 ≤ x ≤ 1.0 mol%) bioactive glasses. The radiation attenuation features of these glasses were investigated by determining different factors including mass attenuation coefficient (μ/ρ), exposure and absorption buildup factors (EBF and EABF), neutron removal cross section (NRCS), and effective atomic number (Zeff) for photon, proton, and carbon ion interactions. Geant4 toolkit and Phy-X program were employed for simulations and calculations procedures. The results revealed that NiO content in the studied bioactive glasses has a significant effect on photon interaction and an insignificant effect on the charged particle interactions. The Zeff values of the studied glasses were observed in the range of 18–20 for photon interaction, 10.7–10.9 for proton interaction, and 10.0–10.7 for carbon ion interaction. The NRCS values were 0.087, 0.088, 0.089, 0.090, and 0.091 cm-1 for x = 0, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8 and 1.0 mol%, respectively. The studied bioactive glasses showed a good ability to attenuate gamma radiation at energies of medical applications.