Quantum material may help detect brain disease

Researchers at Purdue University in Indiana believe the material, which is based on a perovskite mineral, may help in early diagnosis of neurological diseases such as Parkinson's, and could even unlock science-fiction concepts like downloading the contents of the brain. These are still a long way off, but the team, led by Shriram Ramanathan, believes that it represents an important step towards this goal.

Ramanathan’s laboratory is trying to create materials that mimic how the brain works. The major difficulty with this is that the materials we use for "thinking" machines are semiconductors, which work through conduction of electrons, whereas the brain uses currents of ions. To bridge the gap between the two modes of conduction, the researchers are investigating quantum materials, whose electrical behaviour cannot be explained by classical physics.

In a paper in Nature Communications, the team explains how they have engineered a perovskite nickelate material to interact with living brain matter. Perovskites will be more familiar to Engineer readers as materials with potential for low-cost photovoltaic cells in solar panels, but in this case the electronic properties of the transition metal nickel allow charges from the ions in the brain matter to transfer into the perovskite.