Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Blog – Page 11541

By Dr. Robert Green, postdoctoral fellow, Quantum Matter Institute

In the field of quantum matter research, we seek to uncover materials with properties that may find applications in new technologies. My team and I study the properties of various materials at an atomic level to find innovative ways that they can be used to compose the next generation of computer chips. Our research results in large amounts of experimental data. One of the toughest challenges is to analyze and present the data in a meaningful way, for not only our understanding of their underlying complex, quantum principles, but also for wider audiences, including fellow researchers in the field.

One of our key research projects aims to uncover properties in materials that might be used to make smaller, more energy efficient computer chips — five to 10 years from now. In accordance with Moore’s Law, the number of transistors and overall processing power within a chip has doubled every two years for over four decades. But as chips have become more and more powerful, technological demands also continue to expand and the devices that use these chips are also becoming more portable. As a result, conventional practices of making chips are straining the laws of physics to incorporate more transistors within a shrinking area.

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High-performance detectors that are compatible with mainstream semiconductor device fabrication deliver high speed, ultra-sensitivity, and good timing resolution.

Recent advances in biomedical imaging include the enhancement of image contrast, 3D sectioning capability, and compatibility with specialized imaging modes such as fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM).1–3 Compared with other imaging methods, FLIM offers the highest image contrast because it measures the lifetime of the fluorescence, rather than just its intensity or wavelength characteristics. The contrasting fluorescence lifetime attributes can then enable the observer to discriminate between regions, such as identifying healthy and diseased tissue for cancer detection. In conventional FLIM, a discrete single-photon detector, typically based on photomultiplier tube (PMT) technology, enables the acquisition of a single focal spot.4 This focal spot is then raster-scanned across the field of view to form an image. This approach, however, requires sequential scanning—pixel by pixel—and thus results in a slow image acquisition rate.

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Human brain is made up of a billion nerve cells called neurons and various other types of cells and is the most complex machine ever known. Even after years of research and studies we still do not have a complete understanding of how it works — how it controls every single thing we ever do. In order to unravel one such mysteries of the brain, researchers at the Carnegie Mellon University set out to find out why brain makes mistakes. The study was conducted as part of Carnegie Mellon’s BrainHub, a university initiative that focuses on how the structure and activity of the brain give rise to complex behaviors.

Brain

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An illustration showing how the “window to the brain” transparent skull implant created by UC Riverside researchers would work (credit: UC Riverside)

Researchers at the University of California, Riverside have developed a transparent “window to the brain” — a skull implant that is biocompatible, infection-resistant, and does not need to be repetitively replaced.

Part of the ongoing “Window to the Brain” project, a multi-institution, cross-disciplinary effort, the idea is to use transparent skull implants to provide laser diagnosis and treatment of a wide variety of brain pathologies, including brain cancers, traumatic brain injury, stroke, and neurodegenerative diseases, without requiring repeated craniotomies (a surgical operation in which a bone flap is temporarily removed from the skull to access the brain). Such operations are vulnerable to bacterial infections.

A biocompatible transparent material

The researchers have developed a transparent version of the material yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ), a ceramic material used in hip implants and dental crowns.

Continue reading “A biocompatible, transparent therapeutic window to the brain” | >