Investigation of the potential of zinc oxide-copper oxide nanocomposites as shielding against gamma ray, physical, and structural properties

The mass attenuation coefficient (mu/rho) is examined in the experimental and theoretical way for five concentrations of ZnO-CuO nanocomposites. These samples have been synthesized by the Co-precipitation method. XRD investigation demonstrated an improvement in crystallite size by examining structure factors in a range (11.5-26) nm. The mass attenuation coefficient (mu/rho) was measured experimentally at gamma-ray energies of radioisotopes 133Ba (356) keV, 22Na (511 and 1275) keV, 137Cs (662) keV, and 60Co (1173 and 1333) keV using narrow beam geometry NaI(Tl) detector. The samples were subjected to theoretical study using the Phy-X/PSD program for comparison with the experimental results. Total atomic cross sections (sigma t,a), electronic cross sections (sigma t,e), and effective atomic number (Zeff) were calculated using the obtained mu/rho values. The findings demonstrate that there is generally good agreement between theoretical and experimental calculations, which supports the suitability of ZnO-CuO nanocomposites for gamma radiation shielding.