8 Comments

Bryan Johnson's company Kernel announced a couple years ago that they were producing two products: "Kernel Flux" (OPM-MEG) and "Kernel Flow" (td-fNIRS). Of these, Kernel Flow is alive and well, but it seems that all mentions of Kernel Flux have disappeared from their website, without any explanation, as far as I know. Does anyone know what's the deal with that?

Expand full comment

oh huh I wondered whatever became of Kernel! pleasantly surprised that they came out with a product that makes sense and seems to have some actual scientific validation! no idea about kernel flux though

Expand full comment

Some early work on using a gradiometer for portable shielding:

https://journals.aps.org/prapplied/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.14.011002

Because the gradiometer measures B_2 - B_1, it's able to ignore background magnetic fields.

Expand full comment

I wonder if this: https://www.tuwien.at/en/tu-wien/news/news-articles/news/lange-erhoffter-durchbruch-erstmals-atomkern-mit-laser-angeregt

will enable more accurate magnetometers to measuring neuronal activity.

Expand full comment

I wonder if the same infrastructure for putting ion-trap quantum computers on a chip could be used here. Would avoid the need to make boxes of gas I think?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapped-ion_quantum_computer#Scalable_trap_designs

Expand full comment

Really interesting, thank you. Amazingly complex processes to manufacture these atomic vapor cells, always amazes me that we can even do that, let alone what we can do with the output!

Expand full comment

This is kinda a nitpick, but unless I'm very confused, an OPM is not a MEMS device. The second M in MEMS is for Mechanical, i.e. "it has actual little moving parts", like typically a little machined beam that goes up and down, or things like that. I don't think OPMs have any "moving parts". (Atoms bouncing around within a vapor cell don't count.)

That said, I think there's some overlap in processes and machinery such that if you want to make an OPM, you might well do it at the nearest (so-called) "MEMS fab". Maybe that's how you wound up with that idea?

Sorry if I'm confused here.

Expand full comment

it's not mechanical but I have seen manufacturers describe it as MEMS so I assumed it was ok usage? but maybe I misunderstood.

Expand full comment