Tag Archives: Vipul Bansal

Using light to manipulate neurons

There are three (or more?) possible applications including neuromorphic computing for this new optoelectronic technology which is based on black phophorus. A July 16, 2019 news item on Nanowerk announces the research,

Researchers from RMIT University [Australia] drew inspiration from an emerging tool in biotechnology – optogenetics – to develop a device that replicates the way the brain stores and loses information.

Optogenetics allows scientists to delve into the body’s electrical system with incredible precision, using light to manipulate neurons so that they can be turned on or off.

The new chip is based on an ultra-thin material that changes electrical resistance in response to different wavelengths of light, enabling it to mimic the way that neurons work to store and delete information in the brain.

Caption: The new chip is based on an ultra-thin material that changes electrical resistance in response to different wavelengths of light. Credit: RMIT University

A July 17, 2019 RMIT University press release (also on EurekAlert but published on July 16, 2019), which originated the news item, expands on the theme,

Research team leader Dr Sumeet Walia said the technology moves us closer towards artificial intelligence (AI) that can harness the brain’s full sophisticated functionality.

“Our optogenetically-inspired chip imitates the fundamental biology of nature’s best computer – the human brain,” Walia said.

“Being able to store, delete and process information is critical for computing, and the brain does this extremely efficiently.

“We’re able to simulate the brain’s neural approach simply by shining different colours onto our chip.

“This technology takes us further on the path towards fast, efficient and secure light-based computing.

“It also brings us an important step closer to the realisation of a bionic brain – a brain-on-a-chip that can learn from its environment just like humans do.”

Dr Taimur Ahmed, lead author of the study published in Advanced Functional Materials, said being able to replicate neural behavior on an artificial chip offered exciting avenues for research across sectors.

“This technology creates tremendous opportunities for researchers to better understand the brain and how it’s affected by disorders that disrupt neural connections, like Alzheimer’s disease and dementia,” Ahmed said.

The researchers, from the Functional Materials and Microsystems Research Group at RMIT, have also demonstrated the chip can perform logic operations – information processing – ticking another box for brain-like functionality.

Developed at RMIT’s MicroNano Research Facility, the technology is compatible with existing electronics and has also been demonstrated on a flexible platform, for integration into wearable electronics.

How the chip works:

Neural connections happen in the brain through electrical impulses. When tiny energy spikes reach a certain threshold of voltage, the neurons bind together – and you’ve started creating a memory.

On the chip, light is used to generate a photocurrent. Switching between colors causes the current to reverse direction from positive to negative.

This direction switch, or polarity shift, is equivalent to the binding and breaking of neural connections, a mechanism that enables neurons to connect (and induce learning) or inhibit (and induce forgetting).

This is akin to optogenetics, where light-induced modification of neurons causes them to either turn on or off, enabling or inhibiting connections to the next neuron in the chain.

To develop the technology, the researchers used a material called black phosphorus (BP) that can be inherently defective in nature.

This is usually a problem for optoelectronics, but with precision engineering the researchers were able to harness the defects to create new functionality.

“Defects are usually looked on as something to be avoided, but here we’re using them to create something novel and useful,” Ahmed said.

“It’s a creative approach to finding solutions for the technical challenges we face.”

Here’s a link and a citation for the paper,

Multifunctional Optoelectronics via Harnessing Defects in Layered Black Phosphorus by Taimur Ahmed, Sruthi Kuriakose, Sherif Abbas,, Michelle J. S. Spencer, Md. Ataur Rahman, Muhammad Tahir, Yuerui Lu, Prashant Sonar, Vipul Bansal, Madhu Bhaskaran, Sharath Sriram, Sumeet Walia. Advanced Functional Materials DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.201901991 First published (online): 17 July 2019

This paper is behind a paywall.

Real-time tracking of UV (ultraviolet light) exposure for all skin types (light to dark)

It’s nice to find this research after my August 21, 2018 posting where I highlighted (scroll down to ‘Final comments’) the issues around databases and skin cancer data which is usually derived from fair-skinned people while people with darker hues tend not to be included. This is partly due to the fact that fair-skinned people have a higher risk and also partly due to myths about how more melanin in your skin somehow protects you from skin cancer.

This October 4, 2018 news item on ScienceDaily announces research into a way to track UV exposure for all skin types,

Researchers from the University of Granada [Spain] and RMIT University in Melbourne [Australia] have developed personalised and low-cost wearable ultraviolet (UV) sensors that warn users when their exposure to the sun has become dangerous.

The paper-based sensor, which can be worn as a wristband, features happy and sad emoticon faces — drawn in an invisible UV-sensitive ink — that successively light up as you reach 25%, 50%, 75% and finally 100% of your daily recommended UV exposure.

The research team have also created six versions of the colour-changing wristbands, each of which is personalised for a specific skin tone  [emphasis mine]– an important characteristic given that darker people need more sun exposure to produce vitamin D, which is essential for healthy bones, teeth and muscles.

An October 2, 2018 University of Granada press release (also on EurekAlert) delves further,

Four of the wristbands, each of which indicates a different stage of exposure to UV radiation (25%, 50%, 75% and 100%)

The emoticon faces on the wristband successively “light up” as exposure to UV radiation increases

Skin cancer, one of the most common types of cancer throughout the world, is primarily caused by overexposure to ultraviolet radiation (UVR). In Spain, over 74,000 people are diagnosed with non-melanoma skin cancer every year, while a further 4,000 are diagnosed with melanoma skin cancer. In regions such as Australia, where the ozone layer has been substantially depleted, it is estimated that approximately 2 in 3 people will be diagnosed with skin cancer by the time they reach the age of 70.

“UVB and UVC radiation is retained by the ozone layer. This sensor is especially important in the current context, given that the hole in the ozone layer is exposing us to such dangerous radiation”, explains José Manuel Domínguez Vera, a researcher at the University of Granada’s Department of Inorganic Chemistry and the main author of the paper.

Domínguez Vera also highlights that other sensors currently available on the market only measure overall UV radiation, without distinguishing between UVA, UVB and UVC, each of which has a significantly different impact on human health.  In contrast, the new paper-based sensor can differentiate between UVA, UVB and UVC radiation. Prolonged exposure to UVA radiation is associated with skin ageing and wrinkling, while excessive exposure to UVB causes sunburn and increases the likelihood of skin cancer and eye damage.

Drawbacks of the traditional UV index

Ultraviolet radiation is determined by aspects such as location, time of day, pollution levels, astronomical factors, weather conditions such as clouds, and can be heightened by reflective surfaces like bodies of water, sand and snow. But UV rays are not visible to the human eye (even if it is cloudy UV radiation can be high) and until now the only way of monitoring UV intensity has been to use the UV index, which is standardly given in weather reports and indicates 5 degrees of radiation;  low, moderate, high, very high or extreme.

Despite its usefulness, the UV index is a relatively limited tool. For instance, it does not clearly indicate what time of the day or for how long you should be outside to get your essential vitamin D dose, or when to cover up to avoid sunburn and a heightened risk of skin cancer.

Moreover, the UV index is normally based on calculations for fair skin, making it unsuitable for ethnically diverse populations.  While individuals with fairer skin are more susceptible to UV damage, those with darker skin require much longer periods in the sun in order to absorb healthy amounts of vitamin D. In this regard, the UV index is not an accurate tool for gauging and monitoring an individual’s recommended daily exposure.

UV-sensitive ink

The research team set out to tackle the drawbacks of the traditional UV index by developing an inexpensive, disposable and personalised sensor that allows the wearer to track their UV exposure in real-time. The sensor paper they created features a special ink, containing phosphomolybdic acid (PMA), which turns from colourless to blue when exposed to UV radiation. They can use the initially-invisible ink to draw faces—or any other design—on paper and other surfaces. Depending on the type and intensity of the UV radiation to which the ink is exposed, the paper begins to turn blue; the greater the exposure to UV radiation, the faster the paper turns blue.

Additionally, by tweaking the ink composition and the sensor design, the team were able to make the ink change colour faster or slower, allowing them to produce different sensors that are tailored to the six different types of skin colour. [emphasis mine]

Applications beyond health

This low-cost, paper-based sensor technology will not only help people of all colours to strike an optimum balance between absorbing enough vitamin D and avoiding sun damage — it also has significant applications for the agricultural and industrial sectors. UV rays affect the growth of crops and the shelf life of a range of consumer products. As the UV sensors can detect even the slightest doses of UV radiation, as well as the most extreme, this new technology could have vast potential for industries and companies seeking to evaluate the prolonged impact of UV exposure on products that are cultivated or kept outdoors.

The research project is the result of fruitful collaborations between two members of the UGR BIONanoMet (FQM368) research group; Ana González and José Manuel Domínguez-Vera, and the research group led by Dr. Vipul Bansal at RMIT University in Melbourne (Australia).

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Skin color-specific and spectrally-selective naked-eye dosimetry of UVA, B and C radiations by Wenyue Zou, Ana González, Deshetti Jampaiah, Rajesh Ramanathan, Mohammad Taha, Sumeet Walia, Sharath Sriram, Madhu Bhaskaran, José M. Dominguez-Vera, & Vipul Bansal. Nature Communicationsvolume 9, Article number: 3743 (2018) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-06273-3 Published 25 September 2018

This paper is open access.

An artificial enzyme uses light to kill bacteria

An April 4, 2018 news item on ScienceDaily announces a light-based approach to killing bacteria,

Researchers from RMIT University [Australia] have developed a new artificial enzyme that uses light to kill bacteria.

The artificial enzymes could one day be used in the fight against infections, and to keep high-risk public spaces like hospitals free of bacteria like E. coli and Golden Staph.

E. coli can cause dysentery and gastroenteritis, while Golden Staph is the major cause of hospital-acquired secondary infections and chronic wound infections.

Made from tiny nanorods — 1000 times smaller than the thickness of the human hair — the “NanoZymes” use visible light to create highly reactive oxygen species that rapidly break down and kill bacteria.

Lead researcher, Professor Vipul Bansal who is an Australian Future Fellow and Director of RMIT’s Sir Ian Potter NanoBioSensing Facility, said the new NanoZymes offer a major cutting edge over nature’s ability to kill bacteria.

Dead bacteria made beautiful,

Caption: A 3-D rendering of dead bacteria after it has come into contact with the NanoZymes.
Credit: Dr. Chaitali Dekiwadia/ RMIT Microscopy and Microanalysis Facility

An April 5, 2018 RMIT University press release (also on EurekAlert but dated April 4, 2018), which originated the news item, expands on the theme,

“For a number of years we have been attempting to develop artificial enzymes that can fight bacteria, while also offering opportunities to control bacterial infections using external ‘triggers’ and ‘stimuli’,” Bansal said. “Now we have finally cracked it.

“Our NanoZymes are artificial enzymes that combine light with moisture to cause a biochemical reaction that produces OH radicals and breaks down bacteria. Nature’s antibacterial activity does not respond to external triggers such as light.

“We have shown that when shined upon with a flash of white light, the activity of our NanoZymes increases by over 20 times, forming holes in bacterial cells and killing them efficiently.

“This next generation of nanomaterials are likely to offer new opportunities in bacteria free surfaces and controlling spread of infections in public hospitals.”

The NanoZymes work in a solution that mimics the fluid in a wound. This solution could be sprayed onto surfaces.

The NanoZymes are also produced as powders to mix with paints, ceramics and other consumer products. This could mean bacteria-free walls and surfaces in hospitals.

Public toilets — places with high levels of bacteria, and in particular E. coli — are also a prime location for the NanoZymes, and the researchers believe their new technology may even have the potential to create self-cleaning toilet bowls.

While the NanoZymes currently use visible light from torches or similar light sources, in the future they could be activated by sunlight.

The researchers have shown that the NanoZymes work in a lab environment. The team is now evaluating the long-term performance of the NanoZymes in consumer products.

“The next step will be to validate the bacteria killing and wound healing ability of these NanoZymes outside of the lab,” Bansal said.

“This NanoZyme technology has huge potential, and we are seeking interest from appropriate industries for joint product development.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Visible-Light-Triggered Reactive-Oxygen-Species-Mediated Antibacterial Activity of Peroxidase-Mimic CuO Nanorods by Md. Nurul Karim, Mandeep Singh, Pabudi Weerathunge, Pengju Bian, Rongkun Zheng, Chaitali Dekiwadia, Taimur Ahmed, Sumeet Walia, Enrico Della Gaspera, Sanjay Singh, Rajesh Ramanathan, and Vipul Bansal. ACS Appl. Nano Mater., Article ASAP DOI: 10.1021/acsanm.8b00153 Publication Date (Web): March 6, 2018

Copyright © 2018 American Chemical Society

This paper is open access.

Clothes washers and dryers begone! Nano-enhanced textiles can self-clean

It will be a while yet even it this technique proves to be viable commercially, still, the possibilities tantalize: self-cleaning textiles. A March 22, 2016 news item on ScienceDaily announced research in Australia that may, one day, change your life,

A spot of sunshine is all it could take to get your washing done, thanks to pioneering nano research into self-cleaning textiles.

Researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, have developed a cheap and efficient new way to grow special nanostructures — which can degrade organic matter when exposed to light — directly onto textiles.

The work paves the way towards nano-enhanced textiles that can spontaneously clean themselves of stains and grime simply by being put under a light bulb or worn out in the sun.

A March 22, 2016 RMIT media release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, expands on the theme,

Dr Rajesh Ramanathan said the process developed by the team had a variety of applications for catalysis-based industries such as agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals and natural products, and could be easily scaled up to industrial levels.

“The advantage of textiles is they already have a 3D structure so they are great at absorbing light, which in turn speeds up the process of degrading organic matter,” he said.

“There’s more work to do to before we can start throwing out our washing machines, but this advance lays a strong foundation for the future development of fully self-cleaning textiles.”

The researchers from the Ian Potter NanoBioSensing Facility and NanoBiotechnology Research Lab at RMIT worked with copper and silver-based nanostructures, which are known for their ability to absorb visible light.

When the nanostructures are exposed to light, they receive an energy boost that creates “hot electrons”. These “hot electrons” release a burst of energy [emphasis mine] that enables the nanostructures to degrade organic matter.

The challenge for researchers has been to bring the concept out of the lab by working out how to build these nanostructures on an industrial scale and permanently attach them to textiles.

The RMIT team’s novel approach was to grow the nanostructures directly onto the textiles by dipping them into a few solutions, resulting in the development of stable nanostructures within 30 minutes.

When exposed to light, it took less than six minutes for some of the nano-enhanced textiles to spontaneously clean themselves.

“Our next step will be to test our nano-enhanced textiles with organic compounds that could be more relevant to consumers, to see how quickly they can handle common stains like tomato sauce or wine,” Ramanathan said.

I wonder if these “hot electrons” mean that when they release “a burst of energy” your clothing will heat up when exposed to light? This image supplied by the researchers does not help to answer the question but it is intriguing,

Caption: Close-up of the nanostructures grown on cotton textiles by RMIT University researchers. Image magnified 150,000 times. Credit: RMIT University

Caption: Close-up of the nanostructures grown on cotton textiles by RMIT University researchers. Image magnified 150,000 times. Credit: RMIT University

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Robust Nanostructured Silver and Copper Fabrics with Localized Surface Plasmon Resonance Property for Effective Visible Light Induced Reductive Catalysis by Samuel R. Anderson, Mahsa Mohammadtaheri, Dipesh Kumar, Anthony P. O’Mullane, Matthew R. Field, Rajesh Ramanathan, and Vipul Bansal. Advanced Materials Interfaces DOI: 10.1002/admi.201500632 Article first published online: 7 JAN 2016

© 2016 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

This paper is behind a paywall.

Memristor, memristor, you are popular

Regular readers know I have a long-standing interest in memristor and artificial brains. I have three memristor-related pieces of research,  published in the last month or so, for this post.

First, there’s some research into nano memory at RMIT University, Australia, and the University of California at Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara). From a May 12, 2015 news item on ScienceDaily,

RMIT University researchers have mimicked the way the human brain processes information with the development of an electronic long-term memory cell.

Researchers at the MicroNano Research Facility (MNRF) have built the one of the world’s first electronic multi-state memory cell which mirrors the brain’s ability to simultaneously process and store multiple strands of information.

The development brings them closer to imitating key electronic aspects of the human brain — a vital step towards creating a bionic brain — which could help unlock successful treatments for common neurological conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.

A May 11, 2015 RMIT University news release, which originated the news item, reveals more about the researchers’ excitement and about the research,

“This is the closest we have come to creating a brain-like system with memory that learns and stores analog information and is quick at retrieving this stored information,” Dr Sharath said.

“The human brain is an extremely complex analog computer… its evolution is based on its previous experiences, and up until now this functionality has not been able to be adequately reproduced with digital technology.”

The ability to create highly dense and ultra-fast analog memory cells paves the way for imitating highly sophisticated biological neural networks, he said.

The research builds on RMIT’s previous discovery where ultra-fast nano-scale memories were developed using a functional oxide material in the form of an ultra-thin film – 10,000 times thinner than a human hair.

Dr Hussein Nili, lead author of the study, said: “This new discovery is significant as it allows the multi-state cell to store and process information in the very same way that the brain does.

“Think of an old camera which could only take pictures in black and white. The same analogy applies here, rather than just black and white memories we now have memories in full color with shade, light and texture, it is a major step.”

While these new devices are able to store much more information than conventional digital memories (which store just 0s and 1s), it is their brain-like ability to remember and retain previous information that is exciting.

“We have now introduced controlled faults or defects in the oxide material along with the addition of metallic atoms, which unleashes the full potential of the ‘memristive’ effect – where the memory element’s behaviour is dependent on its past experiences,” Dr Nili said.

Nano-scale memories are precursors to the storage components of the complex artificial intelligence network needed to develop a bionic brain.

Dr Nili said the research had myriad practical applications including the potential for scientists to replicate the human brain outside of the body.

“If you could replicate a brain outside the body, it would minimise ethical issues involved in treating and experimenting on the brain which can lead to better understanding of neurological conditions,” Dr Nili said.

The research, supported by the Australian Research Council, was conducted in collaboration with the University of California Santa Barbara.

Here’s a link to and a citation for this memristive nano device,

Donor-Induced Performance Tuning of Amorphous SrTiO3 Memristive Nanodevices: Multistate Resistive Switching and Mechanical Tunability by  Hussein Nili, Sumeet Walia, Ahmad Esmaielzadeh Kandjani, Rajesh Ramanathan, Philipp Gutruf, Taimur Ahmed, Sivacarendran Balendhran, Vipul Bansal, Dmitri B. Strukov, Omid Kavehei, Madhu Bhaskaran, and Sharath Sriram. Advanced Functional Materials DOI: 10.1002/adfm.201501019 Article first published online: 14 APR 2015

© 2015 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

This paper is behind a paywall.

The second published piece of memristor-related research comes from a UC Santa Barbara and  Stony Brook University (New York state) team but is being publicized by UC Santa Barbara. From a May 11, 2015 news item on Nanowerk (Note: A link has been removed),

In what marks a significant step forward for artificial intelligence, researchers at UC Santa Barbara have demonstrated the functionality of a simple artificial neural circuit (Nature, “Training and operation of an integrated neuromorphic network based on metal-oxide memristors”). For the first time, a circuit of about 100 artificial synapses was proved to perform a simple version of a typical human task: image classification.

A May 11, 2015 UC Santa Barbara news release (also on EurekAlert)by Sonia Fernandez, which originated the news item, situates this development within the ‘artificial brain’ effort while describing it in more detail (Note: A link has been removed),

“It’s a small, but important step,” said Dmitri Strukov, a professor of electrical and computer engineering. With time and further progress, the circuitry may eventually be expanded and scaled to approach something like the human brain’s, which has 1015 (one quadrillion) synaptic connections.

For all its errors and potential for faultiness, the human brain remains a model of computational power and efficiency for engineers like Strukov and his colleagues, Mirko Prezioso, Farnood Merrikh-Bayat, Brian Hoskins and Gina Adam. That’s because the brain can accomplish certain functions in a fraction of a second what computers would require far more time and energy to perform.

… As you read this, your brain is making countless split-second decisions about the letters and symbols you see, classifying their shapes and relative positions to each other and deriving different levels of meaning through many channels of context, in as little time as it takes you to scan over this print. Change the font, or even the orientation of the letters, and it’s likely you would still be able to read this and derive the same meaning.

In the researchers’ demonstration, the circuit implementing the rudimentary artificial neural network was able to successfully classify three letters (“z”, “v” and “n”) by their images, each letter stylized in different ways or saturated with “noise”. In a process similar to how we humans pick our friends out from a crowd, or find the right key from a ring of similar keys, the simple neural circuitry was able to correctly classify the simple images.

“While the circuit was very small compared to practical networks, it is big enough to prove the concept of practicality,” said Merrikh-Bayat. According to Gina Adam, as interest grows in the technology, so will research momentum.

“And, as more solutions to the technological challenges are proposed the technology will be able to make it to the market sooner,” she said.

Key to this technology is the memristor (a combination of “memory” and “resistor”), an electronic component whose resistance changes depending on the direction of the flow of the electrical charge. Unlike conventional transistors, which rely on the drift and diffusion of electrons and their holes through semiconducting material, memristor operation is based on ionic movement, similar to the way human neural cells generate neural electrical signals.

“The memory state is stored as a specific concentration profile of defects that can be moved back and forth within the memristor,” said Strukov. The ionic memory mechanism brings several advantages over purely electron-based memories, which makes it very attractive for artificial neural network implementation, he added.

“For example, many different configurations of ionic profiles result in a continuum of memory states and hence analog memory functionality,” he said. “Ions are also much heavier than electrons and do not tunnel easily, which permits aggressive scaling of memristors without sacrificing analog properties.”

This is where analog memory trumps digital memory: In order to create the same human brain-type functionality with conventional technology, the resulting device would have to be enormous — loaded with multitudes of transistors that would require far more energy.

“Classical computers will always find an ineluctable limit to efficient brain-like computation in their very architecture,” said lead researcher Prezioso. “This memristor-based technology relies on a completely different way inspired by biological brain to carry on computation.”

To be able to approach functionality of the human brain, however, many more memristors would be required to build more complex neural networks to do the same kinds of things we can do with barely any effort and energy, such as identify different versions of the same thing or infer the presence or identity of an object not based on the object itself but on other things in a scene.

Potential applications already exist for this emerging technology, such as medical imaging, the improvement of navigation systems or even for searches based on images rather than on text. The energy-efficient compact circuitry the researchers are striving to create would also go a long way toward creating the kind of high-performance computers and memory storage devices users will continue to seek long after the proliferation of digital transistors predicted by Moore’s Law becomes too unwieldy for conventional electronics.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Training and operation of an integrated neuromorphic network based on metal-oxide memristors by M. Prezioso, F. Merrikh-Bayat, B. D. Hoskins, G. C. Adam, K. K. Likharev,    & D. B. Strukov. Nature 521, 61–64 (07 May 2015) doi:10.1038/nature14441

This paper is behind a paywall but a free preview is available through ReadCube Access.

The third and last piece of research, which is from Rice University, hasn’t received any publicity yet, unusual given Rice’s very active communications/media department. Here’s a link to and a citation for their memristor paper,

2D materials: Memristor goes two-dimensional by Jiangtan Yuan & Jun Lou. Nature Nanotechnology 10, 389–390 (2015) doi:10.1038/nnano.2015.94 Published online 07 May 2015

This paper is behind a paywall but a free preview is available through ReadCube Access.

Dexter Johnson has written up the RMIT research (his May 14, 2015 post on the Nanoclast blog on the IEEE [Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers] website). He linked it to research from Mark Hersam’s team at Northwestern University (my April 10, 2015 posting) on creating a three-terminal memristor enabling its use in complex electronics systems. Dexter strongly hints in his headline that these developments could lead to bionic brains.

For those who’d like more memristor information, this June 26, 2014 posting which brings together some developments at the University of Michigan and information about developments in the industrial sector is my suggestion for a starting point. Also, you may want to check out my material on HP Labs, especially prominent in the story due to the company’s 2008 ‘discovery’ of the memristor, described on a page in my Nanotech Mysteries wiki, and the controversy triggered by the company’s terminology (there’s more about the controversy in my April 7, 2010 interview with Forrest H Bennett III).