This week we discover an artificial skin that will help maintain the temperature of goods that is based upon Squid Skin. We also investigate a breakthrough in Quantum Computing and we examine a new approach to Fusion Energy. Finally we look at how we can monitor the ocean depths for earthquakes by using undersea Fibre Optic Cables.
Artificial Squid Skin
University of California researchers have developed a cheap rubbery material that mimics the properties of squid skin. The skin is extremely light (it is so light it effectively has no weight) and stretches to more than double its’ original size.
The skin is able to manage heat in an adaptive way. It has potential for use in managing the heat in take away coffee cups, restaurant take out bags, parcel boxes and even shipping containers. Anything that is perishable and needs a controlled temperature.
In nature, a Squid’s Skin can change color by altering the reflection and transmission of visible light. It does this by stretching and shrinking the skin as required. The artificial squid skin works in a similar way, the more you stretch it the more heat it allows to escape.
The top layer of the material is made of copper and the underlying support layer is a common rubbery polymer. The skin is non toxic, recyclable, antibacterial and able to be produced at very large scale while retaining strength, stretch and temperature regulation capacity. The skin can be produced for 10c a square meter which is the same cost as producing the inside of a potato chip packet.
The team is now working on developing marketable and commercially viable products. They are also looking at placing sensors inside the material to monitor temperature or adding self repair capability.
The First Quantum Circuit
Australian startup, Silicon Quantum Computation founded by former Australian of the Year Michelle Simmons, has developed the first Quantum Circuit. This is the same type of circuit that is found on a standard computer chip but at the quantum scale.
The team has created a functional quantum processor. It was successfully tested using a small molecule in which each atom has multiple quantum states. This is something that a traditional computer would not be able to achieve.
In 2012 the same team created the first ever quantum transistor. This is a small device that controls electronic signals. It is one part of a computer circuit. An integrated circuit puts lots of transistors together.
To create the quantum circuit the team used a scanning tunneling microscope in an ultra high vacuum to place quantum dots with sub-nanometer precision. Each dot needs to mimic how electrons hop along a string of single and double bonded carbons in a polyacetylene molecule. The key was figuring out how many atoms of phosphorous should be in each quantum dot and exactly how far apart the dots should be. They then built a machine that could place these dots in exactly the right arrangement inside the silicon chip. The final quantum chip contained 10 quantum dots.
Why are quantum computers important? If we wanted to create a simulation of how the penicillin molecule with 41 atoms interacts with its environment, a classical computer would need 10 to the 86th transistors (i.e. a 1 with 86 zeros behind it, that is more transistors than atoms in the universe). A quantum computer would only need 286 qubits (quantum bits). Quantum computing will open up a whole new way of analyzing how the world works at the micro level. This will help with drug development and many other advanced applications.
The first classical transistor was developed in 1947. 11 years later the first integrated circuit was created. It took the team 9 years to make the leap from the first quantum transistor to the first quantum circuit. 5 years after the development of the classical integrated circuit, commercial products for classical computing arrived. If we hold to the same development schedule, the first commercial quantum computing applications may not be all that far away.
A new approach to Fusion
We have talked about the progress in the development of Fusion energy reactors on earth quite a few times. This week we will look at a new approach to creating Fusion energy (rather than a breakthrough in development). Currently there are approximately 45 Fusion startups globally that have raised in excess of US$4Billion. I am confident that one or more will succeed in the near term. On top of this the multi government funded ITER project in France has a final budget estimate of US$20Billion (sometimes startups are more efficient than governments, food for thought on how Governments might help drive progress in the future).
Seattle based Zap Energy is using a 1950’s idea called Z-pinch technology. This uses an electromagnetic field instead of the massive and highly expensive magnetic coils used in the Tokamak designs used by other Fusion programs. The plasma is inside a relatively small space and is pinched until it becomes hot and dense enough for the fusion reaction.
This approach has been considered attractive for many years however stabilizing the plasma proved very difficult. The team achieved first fusion in 2018 and recently achieved fusion in their prototype reactor. The team is now working on achieving a positive energy flow from their reactor (i.e. more energy out than is required to achieve the fusion reaction).
The reactor is smaller than many competing proposals. Each reactor is small enough to fit into a single car garage. This will allow for multiple distributed smaller reactors rather than the current model of centralized power generation. This adds redundancy and flexibility to the system.
Detecting Undersea Earthquakes
A team at the University of Edinburgh have developed a way to use existing undersea fibre cables to detect seismic events. The group used a cable spanning the Atlantic Ocean to demonstrate the capability.
The idea goes back to the 1960’s. More recently a cable was installed in Monterey Bay in California to test the idea. The team used distributed acoustic sensing to detect seismic activity. Light pulses are sent across the cable and sensors listen for any that are bounced back due to tremors. A team from Caltech working with Google recently demonstrated the idea of polarization in regular undersea cables.
In this latest effort by the team in Scotland, the researchers extended the idea of using the undersea cables by taking advantage of the repeaters in the cables. Repeaters are used to send signals great distances across the ocean. A signal is received, it is amplified and sent on. Repeaters can also send signals in reverse (this helps isolate problems in the cables). Light was sent through the cables from the UK to Canada. The team studied the signals sent back. They discovered that they were able to detect a small earthquake near Peru (see below) and another near Indonesia.
The cables were so sensitive they could also make out the noise from moving ocean currents. Future work may provide an early warning system for earthquakes at sea that are otherwise difficult to detect early.
Paying it Forward
If you have a start-up or know of a start-up that has a product ready for market please let me know. I would be happy to have a look and feature the startup in this newsletter. Also if any startups need introductions please get in touch and I will help where I can.
If you have any questions or comments please comment below.
I would also appreciate it if you could forward this newsletter to anyone that you think might be interested.
Till next week.