Determination of structural features of different Perovskite ceramics and investigation of ionizing radiation shielding properties

Recently, the use of ionizing radiation in various fields leads to an increased demand for shielding materials. This work aims to study the structural and radiation shielding properties of two groups of perovskite ceramics. Fourier transform infrared and X-ray diffraction were utilized to investigate current samples’ structure, and various radiation shielding parameters were determined to explore the current samples’ ability to absorb radiation within an energy range from 0.284 to 2.506 MeV using the Phy-X program. The Fourier transform infrared results revealed one vibration band for BaTiO₃–ZrO₂ located at 507 cm⁻¹, two bands centered at 835 and 520 cm⁻¹ for the BaTiO₃-Mo sample, and five bands located at 435, 520, 539, 615, and 775 cm⁻¹ for SrMnO₃–ZnO and SrMnO₃–TeO₂. Simultaneously, the X-ray diffraction displays the hexagonal phase for SrMnO₃ and the tetragonal phase for BaTiO₃ samples. The BaTiO₃-Mo sample has the highest density, packing density, and Poisson’s ratio compares with other samples. According to gamma shielding results, the SrMnO₃–ZnO and BaTiO₃–ZrO₂ samples appear the lowest and highest absorption ability, respectively. On another side, the SrMnO₃–TeO₂ sample has the highest removal cross-section for fast neutrons. From obtained results, it can be concluded that the BaTiO₃–ZrO₂ sample has an excellent capacity to stop gamma-ray, while SrMnO₃–TeO₂ can be used to prevent neutrons.