Drone
Sep 21, 2011, 03:39 PM
Proton-based transistor could let machines communicate with living things
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-09-proton-based-transistor-machines.html
That's a kickass article. Never thought about this before
Human devices send information using electrons. Human bodies and all other living things, on the other hand, send signals and perform work using ions or protons. Materials scientists at the University of Washington have built a novel transistor that uses protons, creating a key piece for devices that can communicate directly with living things. Devices that connect with the human body's processes are being explored for biological sensing or for prosthetics, but they typically communicate using electrons, which are negatively charged particles, rather than protons, which are positively charged hydrogen atoms, or ions, which are atoms with positive or negative charge.
Exciting. Now I can imagine human brain with digital interface. Yeah yeah and it's all because of proton-based transistors.
In the body, protons activate "on" and "off" switches and are key players in biological energy transfer. Ions open and close channels in the cell membrane to pump things in and out of the cell. Animals including humans use ions to flex their muscles and transmit brain signals. A machine that was compatible with a living system in this way could, in the short term, monitor such processes. Someday it could generate proton currents to control certain functions directly.
So basically every living creature is a machine working on proton currents ?! Hmmm ....
A first step toward this type of control is a transistor that can send pulses of proton current. The prototype device is a field-effect transistor, a basic type of transistor that includes a gate, a drain and a source terminal for the current. The UW prototype is the first such device to use protons. It measures about 5 microns wide, roughly a twentieth the width of a human hair. "In our device large bioinspired molecules can move protons, and a proton current can be switched on and off, in a way that's completely analogous to an electronic current in any other field effect transistor," Rolandi said.
So people could build a killswitch for any living creature yeah? I keed :p
The device uses a modified form of the compound chitosan originally extracted from squid pen, a structure that survives from when squids had shells. The material is compatible with living things, is easily manufactured, and can be recycled from crab shells and squid pen discarded by the food industry. First author Chao Zhong, a UW postdoctoral researcher, and second author Yingxin Deng, a UW graduate student, discovered that this form of chitosan works remarkably well at moving protons. The chitosan absorbs water and forms many hydrogen bonds; protons are then able to hop from one hydrogen bond to the next. lol crabs ...
Computer models of charge transport developed by co-authors M.P. Anantram, a UW professor of electrical engineering, and Anita Fadavi Roudsari at Canada's University of Waterloo, were a good match for the experimental results.
"So we now have a protonic parallel to electronic circuitry that we actually start to understand rather well," Rolandi said. Applications in the next decade or so, Rolandi said, would likely be for direct sensing of cells in a laboratory. The current prototype has a silicon base and could not be used in a human body. Longer term, however, a biocompatible version could be implanted directly in living things to monitor, or even control, certain biological processes directly. Very interesting research. I bet it has a big potential. Unlocking full potential and taking a full control over your body, this is so deus-ex~que.
Here's their proton-based transistor:
http://cdn.physorg.com/newman/gfx/news/hires/2011/protonbasedt.jpg
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-09-proton-based-transistor-machines.html
That's a kickass article. Never thought about this before
Human devices send information using electrons. Human bodies and all other living things, on the other hand, send signals and perform work using ions or protons. Materials scientists at the University of Washington have built a novel transistor that uses protons, creating a key piece for devices that can communicate directly with living things. Devices that connect with the human body's processes are being explored for biological sensing or for prosthetics, but they typically communicate using electrons, which are negatively charged particles, rather than protons, which are positively charged hydrogen atoms, or ions, which are atoms with positive or negative charge.
Exciting. Now I can imagine human brain with digital interface. Yeah yeah and it's all because of proton-based transistors.
In the body, protons activate "on" and "off" switches and are key players in biological energy transfer. Ions open and close channels in the cell membrane to pump things in and out of the cell. Animals including humans use ions to flex their muscles and transmit brain signals. A machine that was compatible with a living system in this way could, in the short term, monitor such processes. Someday it could generate proton currents to control certain functions directly.
So basically every living creature is a machine working on proton currents ?! Hmmm ....
A first step toward this type of control is a transistor that can send pulses of proton current. The prototype device is a field-effect transistor, a basic type of transistor that includes a gate, a drain and a source terminal for the current. The UW prototype is the first such device to use protons. It measures about 5 microns wide, roughly a twentieth the width of a human hair. "In our device large bioinspired molecules can move protons, and a proton current can be switched on and off, in a way that's completely analogous to an electronic current in any other field effect transistor," Rolandi said.
So people could build a killswitch for any living creature yeah? I keed :p
The device uses a modified form of the compound chitosan originally extracted from squid pen, a structure that survives from when squids had shells. The material is compatible with living things, is easily manufactured, and can be recycled from crab shells and squid pen discarded by the food industry. First author Chao Zhong, a UW postdoctoral researcher, and second author Yingxin Deng, a UW graduate student, discovered that this form of chitosan works remarkably well at moving protons. The chitosan absorbs water and forms many hydrogen bonds; protons are then able to hop from one hydrogen bond to the next. lol crabs ...
Computer models of charge transport developed by co-authors M.P. Anantram, a UW professor of electrical engineering, and Anita Fadavi Roudsari at Canada's University of Waterloo, were a good match for the experimental results.
"So we now have a protonic parallel to electronic circuitry that we actually start to understand rather well," Rolandi said. Applications in the next decade or so, Rolandi said, would likely be for direct sensing of cells in a laboratory. The current prototype has a silicon base and could not be used in a human body. Longer term, however, a biocompatible version could be implanted directly in living things to monitor, or even control, certain biological processes directly. Very interesting research. I bet it has a big potential. Unlocking full potential and taking a full control over your body, this is so deus-ex~que.
Here's their proton-based transistor:
http://cdn.physorg.com/newman/gfx/news/hires/2011/protonbasedt.jpg