/ News
Spinning better electronic devices
A team of researchers, led by a group at the University of California, Riverside, have demonstrated for the first time the transmission of electrical signals through insulators in a sandwich-like structure, a development that could help create more energy efficient electronic devices.
Conventional electronic devices rely on the transport of electrons in a semiconductor such as silicon. Now, researchers are exploiting the 'spin' of the electron rather than its charge to create a new generation of 'spintronic' devices that are potentially more energy efficient and more versatile than those currently making up silicon chips and circuit elements.
The UC Riverside-led research, which was published online Wednesday (March 2) in the journal Nature Communications, is significant because it demonstrates that a tri-layer, sandwich-like, structure can serves as a scalable pure spin current device, an essential ingredient in spintronics.
A key element in this breakthrough is the material. To demonstrate the effect, the magnetic insulator needs to be truly insulating, or there will be a parasitic signal from leakage. On the other hand, a high-quality magnetic insulator grown on metal had never been demonstrated.
Using combination of sputtering (for metals) and pulsed laser deposition (for insulator), we successfully showed that the 50-100 nanometer thick magnetic insulator, such as yttrium iron garnet, is not only magnetic and insulating, but also of high quality when it is grown on 5 nanometer thick platinum.
In the structures used by the researchers, there are two metals and a magnetic insulator in between. The metals are for spin current generation and detection (conversion of spin current back to charge current) via the so-called spin Hall effect and inverse spin Hall effect.
The magnetic insulator is an electrical insulator but a good spin current conductor. The spin current flowing in the insulator does not involve mobile electrons therefore it does not dissipate energy as an electrical current does in joule heating.
The researchers have also demonstrated that the signal transmission can be switched on and off and modulated in its strength by a magnetic field. The electrical signal transmission through the magnetic insulators can be switched on and off depending on the magnetic state, or direction of the magnetization, of the magnetic insulators.
So the direction of the magnetization can be regarded as a memory state of non-volatile random access memory devices. In addition, the signal level can be modulated by changing the direction of the magnetization; therefore, it can also be used as analog devices. The sandwich structure can be made small by nanofabrication so that the devices can be scaled down.
Source: http://phys.org/news/2016-03-electronic-devices.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”.