Gamma irradiation effects on photoluminescence and semiconducting properties of non-conventional heavy metal binary PbO–Bi2O3 glasses

Non-conventional heavy metal oxide glasses have attracted great interest owing to their unique optical properties and their radiation shielding behavior. Non-conventional glasses of main chemical composition (100 − x) PbO–xBi 2 O 3 where x = 35, 30, 25, 20, 15, 10, and 5 were prepared through the conventional melting and annealing approach. X-ray diffraction measurements denoted the amorphous nature of the prepared glasses. The optical absorption in the UV–visible range recorded strong UV-near visible absorption spectra that correlated to trivalent Bi 3+ ions. The optical band gap E opt , Urbach energy ∆E, and the refractive index were identified for the prepared glasses employing the cognizant theories. The variations in the optical parameters have been associated with the increasing Bi 2 O 3 and the doses of γ- irradiation. The photoluminescent properties of the prepared non-conventional binary Bi 2 O 3 –PbO glasses were recorded in the visible range after UV excitation and the color coordinates are located and distributed in the hue violet degree. FT-IR spectroscopic measurements before and after gamma irradiation were applied to investigate the structural changes in the binary heavy metal PbO–Bi 2 O 3 glasses. FTIR data specified that the glass network is composed of different structural building units from BiO 3 /BiO 6 and PbO 3 /PbO 4 depending on the addition ratio between PbO and Bi 2 O 3 .