Synthesis and characterization of lead oxide nanostructures for radiation attenuation application

Abstract In this study, lead oxide nanostructures (PbO NSs) were synthesized using chemical bath deposition method (CBD). The physical vapor deposition (PVD) technique used to deposit lead oxide seed-layer on the glass substrates. The effects of different deposition time on the morphology, structural and optical properties of lead oxide NSs were studied. Also, the radiation attention coefficient was measured based on synthesized lead oxide NSs with different deposition times. It was observed the alteration of growth time from 5 min to 20 min leads to significant change in morphology from nanofiber like lead oxide structure to the nanoflower like PbO structure. The XRD results, displayed the lead oxide NSs were indexed as Pb3O4 polycrystalline tetragonal phase. Also, the crystal size was in the range of (15.37–85.68) nm, and the growth rate was gradually decreased from 1.9 nm/min to 0.4 nm/min with deposition time from 5 min to 20 min. The synthesized PbO NSs have high transmittance (~80%) in the visible spectrum and low transmittance in the UV region. The energy band gap (Eg) values of the PbO NSs were changed from (2.20–2.36) eV with increasing growth time up to 20 min. The fabricated PbO NSs exhibited a significant performance in radiation shielding. The average radiation attenuation was changed from (14.592–48.642) count/sec as the deposition time increased from 5 min to 20 min. The higher rate of radiation attenuation for PbO NSs was observed at 10 min of deposition time and it was about 14.592 count/sec. The linear attenuation coefficient and half value layer were altered in the range of (226.132 m-1 -1142 m-1) × 104 and (6.0671–30.646) × 10−8, respectively. Also, the minimum and maximum transmission factor was observed for lead oxide NSs fabricated with 10 min and 20 min respectively. In addition, the maximum radiation protection efficiency was estimated for lead oxide NSs at 10 min and it was about 70%.