Assessment of radiation attenuation properties for novel alloys: An experimental approach

In the current investigation, the conventional solid-state reaction was used to fabricate new Cr-based alloys (CrTe, CrTe_0.95Sb_0.05, CrTe_0.90Sb_0.10 and CrTe_0.80Sb_0.20). For these alloys, we experimentally explored the gamma ray shielding performance. Gamma radiation attenuation for the four prepared alloys were performed using “transmission method” with photons emitted from the sources (Ho-166 and Cs-137). The experimental results were compared with the theoretical data generated from Phy-X software, and a good agreement between both methods was reported. Moreover, the radiation protection efficiency for the prepared alloys was reported between 0.184 and 0.81 MeV. The half value layer (HVL) value for the four prepared alloys was also computed, and we discussed the variation of the HVL with the chemical composition for these alloys. The linear attenuation coefficient (LAC) results demonstrated that replacing CrTe alloy with Sb causes in enhancing LAC value in all photon energies. For instance, at 0.662 MeV, LAC is found as 0.330, 0.337, 0.368, and 0.387 1/cm for Sb0 to Sb20 series, respectively.