How effective are rare-earth dopants for photon shielding in oxide glasses? A cross-system comparative analysis

Rare-earth-containing glasses are widely studied for photon shielding, but most reports evaluate dopant effects within a single glass family, making it difficult to identify trends that remain valid across different host matrices. Here, 107 compositions distributed across 23 glass systems and compiled from 20 published studies were evaluated under a common computational framework to identify cross-system trends and matrix-dependent departures. The linear attenuation coefficient, mass attenuation coefficient, half-value layer, and effective atomic number, Z eff , were calculated using Phy-X/PSD. Photon energy governed the overall attenuation response, while differences between compositions depended on density, host-matrix chemistry, elemental redistribution, Z eff , effective atomic weight, and dopant concentration. The largest compositional differences occurred at 0.05 MeV , where dense glasses containing high- Z constituents exhibited the highest attenuation and the smallest HVL values. The maximum LAC was 52.273 cm − 1 for a tellurite glass containing ytterbium (Yb) and bismuth (Bi). Interaction-specific descriptors reproduced the LAC trends with high coefficients of determination for most systems, whereas one multicomponent system deviated strongly at low energy because the redistribution of Te, Ba, Yb, and Bi placed the constituent elements differently relative to their K-absorption edges. This result showed where smooth effective-medium descriptors fail to capture element-specific cross-section structure. Incremental LAC dopant efficiencies were also evaluated for the highest-density system in the dataset to distinguish high total attenuation from high marginal benefit per added molar percentage. The Ce- and Eu-containing series exhibited nonmonotonic, interval-dependent efficiencies, whereas the Yb-containing series showed the clearest overall diminishing-return tendency. At 0.05 MeV , its absolute efficiency decreased from approximately 5.00 to 1.24 cm − 1 ( mol % ) − 1 , while its relative efficiency decreased from 11.3 to 2.70 % ( mol % ) − 1 over the principal decreasing range.