Abstract
The increased demand for ionizing radiation in various fields led to the search for new shielding substances. In this study, five samples of perovskite oxides (BaTiO3, SrTiO3, BaTiO3-SrTiO3, and PbZr0.2Ti0.8O3) doped YBa2-Cu3Oy ceramics were prepared to explore their structure and ability for exploitation in the radiation shielding field. The structural properties were explored by using the XRD technique. The XRD results showed an orthorhombic structure for all prepared ceramics. The crystallite size reduces gradually from 96.19 to 66.63 nm with adding different perovskite oxides into the composites. The density shows a variation from about 5.89 to 6.23 g/cm(3). The mass attenuation coefficient (MAC) was defined experimentally (MAC)(exp) and theoretically (MAC)the to check its validity. The maximum relative difference between (MAC)(exp) and (MAC)(the) is 7.83%. YBa2Cu3O7/(PbZr0.2Ti0.8O3)(2%) and YBa2Cu3O7/(BaTiO3-SrTiO3)(2%) samples showed superior gamma shielding properties and mass stopping power (MSP) for charged particles, respectively, while the pristine YBa2Cu3O7 sample has a better fast neutron removal cross-section (sigma(R)). From the obtained results, it can be seen a slight variation in shielding properties, indicating the ability to use the different ceramic samples as radiation shielding materials.