HEMATENE (Syllabus: GS Paper 3 - Sci & Tech)

Context: Researchers has come up with a new and highly efficient optical limiter using a novel 2D material, ‘hematene’.

Key Points

• Nanoflakes of a material called hematene extracted from iron ore have been found capable of withstanding and acting as shield from high laser intensities. 
• Hence it could be used to make devices called optical limiters that can protect sensitive optical equipment from light-induced damage.
• Radiation from laser sources is highly concentrated and powerful and can be detrimental to sensitive equipment such as sensors, detectors, and other optical devices. 
• When the input intensity increases optical limiters control the amount of light that passes through, thereby preventing damage to the optical component. 
• These devices are often useful in laser technologies, military, telecommunications, aircrafts, and scientific research in several ways.
• Researchers found that 2D nanoflakes of hematene, a material extracted from iron ore or hematite are capable of withstanding very high laser intensities, and they exhibited excellent optical limiting of green laser light (532 nm) while maintaining a high linear transmission (about 87%) for low-intensity light.
• The nanoflakes of lateral dimensions less than 10 nm, prepared by applying ultrasonic waves to hematite in liquid medium ( facile exfoliation process) for a definite period to exfoliate the 2D nanoflakes of hematene were also found to be highly stable after year-long storage under ambient conditions, indicating tremendous potential as an optical limiter for futuristic applications.