Context: Recently, a recipient of the INSPIRE Faculty Award instituted by the Department of Science & Technology(DST), Govt. of India. Dr. Ashish Kumar Mishra, Assistant Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology (BHU), Varanasi,along with his group, has made significant achievements in developing nanomaterials based supercapacitors to achieve high energy density and power density of supercapacitors.
Key Points

• The nano-materials based supercapacitors aims to achieve high energy density and power density of supercapacitors.
• The high energy density of supercapacitors suggests that constant current can be withdrawn for longer duration without recharging and automobiles can run longer distances without charging.
• The team has also developed a reduced graphene oxide (rGO) at a moderate temperature of 100°C with high capacitance performance.
• The group which works on carbon (Carbon Nanotubes, Graphene) and metal dichalcogenides (MoS2, MoSe2, etc.) nano-materials based supercapacitors to achieve high energy density and power density of supercapacitors, have also developed a novel green approach for synthesis of Iron-based nanocatalyst, which can be used for large scale production of Carbon Nanotubes.

About Optoelectronic Applications of Nanomaterials

• Optoelectronics is the study and application of electronic devices and systems that source, detect and control light, usually considered a sub-field of photonics.
• The researchers are developing novel nanostructures of carbon for Surface-Enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS).

About Surface-Enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS)

• It is a technique which offers orders of magnitude increases in Raman intensity, overcoming the traditional drawback of Raman scattering - its inherent weakness.
• SERS is of interest for trace material analysis, flow cytometry and other applications where the current sensitivity/speed of a Raman measurement is insufficient.
• It uses nanoscale roughened metal surfaces typically made of gold (Au) or silver (Ag).
• Raman scattering or Raman effect is the inelastic scattering of photons from an atom or a molecule.
• It can help detect harmful molecules present in water at ultra-low concentrations.
• It successfully demonstrated detection of Rhodamine 6G (R6G), an organic laser dye up to lowest limit of sub-nano-molar concentration using rGO and MoS2 nano-materials.

About INSPIRE (Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research)

• It  is an innovative programme sponsored and managed by the Department of Science & Technology for attraction of talent to Science

The basic objective of INSPIRE is to 

• communicate to the youth of the country the excitements of creative pursuit of science, 
• attract talent to the study of science at an early age and thus build the required critical human resource pool for strengthening and expanding the Science & Technology system and R&D base
• A striking feature of the programme is that it does not believe in conducting competitive exams for identification of talent at any level
• It believes in and relies on the efficacy of the existing educational structure for identification of talent

INSPIRE has three components:

• Scheme for Early Attraction of Talent (SEATS): It aims at attracting talented youth to study science by providing INSPIRE Award, to experience the joy of innovations, of Rs.5,000/- to one million young learners in the age group 10-15 years. 
• Scholarship for Higher Education(SHE): It aims at attracting talented youth into undertaking higher education in science intensive programmes, by providing scholarships and mentoring through 'summer attachment' to performing researchers. 
• Assured Opportunity for Research Careers (AORC): It aims at attracting, attaching, retaining and nourishing talented young scientific Human Resource to strengthened the R&D foundation and base by offering doctoral INSPIRE Fellowship in the age group 22-27 years, in both Basic and Applied sciences (including engineering and medicine).