X-ray photons attenuation characteristics for two tellurite based glass systems at dental diagnostic energies

X-ray photons attenuation characteristics for the two tellarite based glasses Bi2O3– B2O3– TeO2– TiO2 and PbO–ZnO–TeO2–B2O3 have been investigated at dental diagnostic energies (between 30-80 keV) using Geant4 code and WinXcom software. The correlation coefficient (R2) is utilized to evaluate the extent to which Geant4 results are related to the WinXcom data. For the both series, R2 is close to 1 for all samples and this implies a perfect degree of association between the Geant4 and WinXcom data. The linear attenuation coefficient is proportionally increased with addition of TeO2 in both series, which implies that there is a decreasing tendency in the X-ray photon transmission corresponding with an increase in the TeO2 content in the glasses. The half value layer (HVL) decreases as the density increases and this decreasing is very notable at 70 and 80 keV. The maximum HVL for all samples occurs at 80 keV and this implies that the HVL gradually increases as the energy of the X-ray photons increase. Also, the increment of TO2 in the glasses (in both systems) leads to reduce the mean free path and BiTeTi6 and PbTeB6 samples have the lowest MFP. The MFP for both systems was compared with three heavy concretes and the comparison revealed that the selected systems can be utilized to fabricate protection masks used during diagnostic radiation of the head or oral cavity.