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Nanodiamonds make magnetic field sensors
A new electron spin resonance technique involving nanodiamonds and lasers can measure local magnetic fields in liquid environments, according to new experiments by researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The method could be used to monitor a wide range of phenomena that occur in fluids, such as those that occur in biological cells, and study devices like electrochemical cells. “We may even be able to image electromagnetic fields around neurons in the brain,” said the team.
The so-called nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centre in diamond is an especially useful defect for a variety of quantum mechanicalapplications because it has a long spin coherence time, even at room temperature. This means that the quantum spins in the defect take time to flip from their original positions, which allows them to be read out reliably and reinitialized when needed. The structures can thus be employed as quantum probes to detect magnetic fields in their surroundings.
“The nanodiamonds themselves can also be placed with nanometre precision wherever we wish in a sample and be moved around at will,” explained team leader David Awschalom, “something that has potential applications in sensing, tracking and tagging in submicron biophysical systems.”
The UCSB team’s technique relies on measuring the electron spin resonance of the NV centres in nanodiamonds that have themselves been trapped using optical tweezers. The trapping part of the experiments involves using a single laser beam that is so tightly focused that dielectric particles, like those of nanodiamond, are pulled to the beam focus rather than being pushed forwards by the beam. The particles are thus held in the focus, optically levitated and trapped. “By moving the laser focus with respect to the fluidic environment, we can choose where to position the particles using an all-optical technique (no wires or physical contacts needed),” said Awschalom.
Optical tweezers were first developed in the 1970s, by Arthur Ashkin of Bell Laboratories in the US. They are now routinely used in nanophotonics and optics labs around the world.
Monitoring magnetic fields
Awschalom and colleagues, who report their work in PNAS, used nanodiamonds that had been commercially irradiated to create more than 500 NV centres in every 100 nm-sized diamond particle. The researchers then employed electron spin resonance to measure the energy-level structure of the NV centres. “We take advantage of the so-called Zeeman effect, which shifts the spin energy levels of the NV centre, to monitor the magnetic fields detected by the NV sensors in the nanodiamonds,” explained Awschalom.
“Being able to measure the local magnetic field at a chosen location in a fluidic environment using a laser to position the nanodiamond sensor may have multiple applications,” he told nanotechweb.org. “For example, it could help improve our understanding of biological cellular processes, electrochemical cells, surface catalysis or lipid membranes. It also offers us a new way to visualize important biological and chemical structures that may be difficult to probe with conventional techniques.”
The team says that it is now interested in using functionalized nanodiamonds in microfluidic channels in combination with optical trapping and electron spin resonance to maximize the potential for nanodiamond sensing and on-chip sorting to identify and quantify specific targets.
Source: http://nanotechweb.org/cws/article/tech/50675
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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