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New Use for Those Incredible Nanotubes: Holograms
Carbon nanotubes — a manmade material many times thinner than a wavelength of visible light — can be used to create highly detailed holograms, researchers say.
These carbon tubes are hollow pipes only nanometers, or billionths of a meter, wide. They possess a range of extraordinary physical and electrical properties, such as being about 100 times stronger than steel at one-sixth the weight.
Industrial giants, government agencies and academicinstitutes worldwide are investigating carbon nanotubes as key ingredients for tomorrow's devices. This work includes researching a variety of applications regarding light — holograms, for instance.
Holograms are a special kind of 2D photograph that, when lit up, seem like windows onto 3D scenes. The pixels making up each hologram scatter light falling onto them in very specific ways, causing these light waves to interact with each other to generate images with depth.
The smaller the pixels making up the holograms are, the higher the resolution of the holograms and the more angles one can view them from.
"The size of pixels is one of the key limiting features in the state-of-the-art of holographic displays systems," said researcher Haider Butt, an optical scientist at the University of Cambridge in England.
Now scientists have created holograms using the smallest pixels yet — carbon nanotubes.
"Due to the nanoscale dimensions of the carbon nanotube array, the image presented a wide field of view and high resolution," Butt told InnovationNewsDaily.
The researchers used multi-walled carbon nanotubes — tubes within tubes — that were on average 140 nanometers across, or about 700 times thinner than a human hair. These were grown on silicon surfaces like pillars rising from the ground, each reaching about 1,500 nanometers high. Their calculations let them know where these nanotubes should be placed and how wide they should be in order to generate a holographic image of the word "CAMBRIDGE."
These holographic displays and their pixels are very sensitive to changes in material properties and incoming light. As such, "a new class of highly sensitive holographic sensors can be developed that could sense distance, motion, tilt, density of biological materials," and features of light falling onto them, Butt said.
While promising, carbon nanotubes are still expensive to fabricate, so the team is investigating other materials that could generate holograms in similar ways. "Alternative materials should be explored and researched,” Butt said. “As a next step, we are going to try zinc oxide nanowires to achieve the same effects."
Also, these holograms are static, much like photographs are. In the future, the researchers hope to make the adjustable pixels that could perhaps lead to changeable pictures or even video displays. This might be possible by integrating these pixels with the kind of liquid crystals often seen in modern flat-screen displays. The liquid crystals might be able to shuffle around the location and other features of the pixels, thus altering the holographic image they create.
The scientists detailed their findings online Aug. 31 in the journal Advanced Materials.
Source: http://www.livescience.com/23022-new-use-for-those-incredible-nanotubes-holograms.html
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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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