Our newest hackmanite article is out! Sami’s second article concerning gamma radiation effects on hackmanite was published in Materials Horizons (impact factor 15.717) last week, Professor Mika Lastusaari being the corresponding author.
The article shows that gamma radiation induces hackmanite’s typical pink coloration and thus the material can be used to quantify radiation doses, but also that the high-energy radiation deforms the color center so that the reflectance spectrum shows additional signals, meaning that hackmanite can be used to identify the radiation quality. And last but not least: hackmanite also remembers exposure to gamma radiation even if it has been totally bleached to its original white color. This was a very nice and unexpected finding.
The article was an international cooperation of several institutions: University of Turku, University of Lyon (France), Tampere University, Swedish Defence Research Agency FOI, University of Jyväskylä, Turku PET Centre, and Mineralogical Society of Antwerp (Belgium).
The article can be found here: