| EPSRC Reference: |
GR/H66464/01 |
| Title: |
BACTERIORHODOPSIN AND DERIVATIVES FOR OPTICAL CACHE-MEMORY APPLICATIONS |
| Principal Investigator: |
Kar, Professor AK |
| Other Investigators: |
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| Project Partners: |
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| Department: |
Physics |
| Organisation: |
Heriot-Watt University |
| Scheme: |
Standard Research (Pre-FEC) |
| Starts: |
01 January 1993 |
Ends: |
31 December 1994 |
Value (£): |
63,811
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| EPSRC Research Topic Classifications: |
| Materials Synthesis & Growth |
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Summary on Grant Application Form |
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Read-only and write-once-read-many-times optical storage are now commonplace in audio, video and computer systems, exploiting the high data density achievable by comparison with magnetic discs. Erasable optical memory has more recently become available; mechanism employed have been eg laser ablation and thermal control of phase change. The fast and sensitive proton-pumping mechanism in biological materials such as bacteriorhodopsin has been suggested as a potential erasable memory scheme. More especially for future parallel optical processors there is a pressing demand for a cache-memory: a memory that can be written into at the low power levels employed in the 2-D data images, and that is non-volatile for a sufficient number of machine cycle times during which writing into long-term memory could be undertaken if necessary. Bacteriorhodopsin is the principal protein of the purple membrane of halobacterium halobium. Its light-adapted form undergoes a photocycle that involves the ground (bR) state and at least six intermediates. Work in the early 1980's, concentrated on the ground (bR) and K intermediate states, the latter being stable at liquid nitrogen temperatures. In the last two years interest has changed to the M-intermediary generated using yellow illumination and with a lifetime exceeding 10 ms at room temperature. Relaxation back to the bR state is achieved with blue light. It is this mechanism that we shall concentrate on in the present study. Workers in Germany have demonstrated a crude spatial light modulator using this scheme. The purpose of this project will be to build on this, but with particular reference to optical processor - compatible parallel cache-memory. By collaboration between physicists and biochemists we will be able to study a range of modified materials to improve the photo-excited M intermediate-state stability and control the wavelength of operation using (i) external factors, (ii) chromophore substitution and (iii) protein engineering.
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Key Findings |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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Potential use in non-academic contexts |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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Impacts |
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| Description |
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk |
| Summary |
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| Date Materialised |
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Sectors submitted by the Researcher |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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| Project URL: |
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| Further Information: |
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| Organisation Website: |
http://www.hw.ac.uk |