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Nanoshaping — Additive Manufacturing, But With Tiny Forces And Not Materials
It’s an entirely new method of “additive manufacturing” where the only thing added is 1 or 2 gigapascals of force. In case you’re wondering, one square inch of water results in 0.0361396333 pounds per square inch – and that’s 0.000000249 gigapascals.
It might better be called 3D stamping, but by using “laser shock imprinting,” the process creates 3D crystalline metallic structures as small as 10 nm with ultrasmooth surfaces – and it does so at room temperature.
The method creates large-area patterns of three-dimensional nanoshapes from metal sheets and could lead to inexpensive, mass produced innovations such as “plasmonic metamaterials” for use in advanced technologies. Plasmonic metamaterials are custom made composites (combinations of metallic and dielectric materials designed to achieve optical properties not seen in nature), and their properties stem from the unique structure of such composites which include features smaller than the wavelength of light separated by subwavelength distances.
In a paper on the subject, “Large Scale Nanoshaping of Ultrasmooth 3D Crystalline Metallic Structures,” authors Huang Gao, Yaowu Hu, Yi Xuan, Ji Li, Yingling Yang, Ramses V. Martinez, Chunyu Li, Jian Luo, Minghao Qi, and Gary J. Cheng say the benchtop method enables thin layers of metal to be shaped with nanoscale precision. The authors are comprised of doctoral students and professors from Purdue, a researcher from Harvard and Madrid Institute for Advanced Studies, and a professor from the University of California, San Diego.
The technique results in uniform nanopatterns from metamaterials and have engineered surfaces with features, patterns or elements which provide unprecedented control of light. The researchers say the technique could result in innovations like high-speed electronics, advanced sensors, and solar cells. The process creates crystalline forms from metals which potentially give them “ideal mechanical and optical properties.”
Shapes like nanopyramids, gears, bars, grooves, and a fishnet pattern are thousands of times thinner than the width of a human hair, and the researchers have used the technique to stamp nanoshapes from titanium, aluminum, copper, gold, and silver. This “shock-induced forming” method sharply defines corners and vertical features.
“These nanoshapes also have extremely smooth surfaces, which is potentially very advantageous for commercial applications. Traditionally it has been really difficult to deform a crystalline material into a nanomold much smaller than the grain size of starting materials, and due to the size effects the materials are super-strong when grain size has to be reduced to very small sizes,” Cheng says. “It is very challenging to generate metal flow into nanomolds with high-fidelity 3D shaping.”
Cheng adds that the work has also resulted in hybrid structures which combine metal with graphene, and that these hybrid materials enhance the plasmonic effect and bring “metamaterial perfect absorbers,” or MPAs.
The technique uses a pulsed laser to generate “high strain rate” imprinting of metals into the nanomold.
“We start with a metal thin film, and we can deform it into 3D nanoshapes patterned over large areas. What is more interesting is that the resulting 3D nanostructures are still crystalline after the imprinting process, which provides good electromagnetic and optical properties,” said Cheng.
The project was supported by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Office of Naval Research, and the National Research Council.
How do you define what is, and what isn’t, additive manufacturing? Please feel free to include your definition at the Nanoshaping forum thread at 3DPB.com.
Source: http://3dprint.com/31221/laser-shock-imprinting/
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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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