渡り鳥の高感度磁気センサ一を模倣したスピン制御の可能性

摘要

Many living things have high sensitivity to specific signals; e.g., bacteria, plants, and animals have been reported to receive and use eartH's magnetic field (faint field of ca. 50 μT). The possibility that the blue-light photoreceptor protein, cryptochrome, is one of the highly sensitive magnetic receptors has been strongly suggested. The mechanism responsible for this is presumed to be as follows; when flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD) in cryptochrome is irradiated with blue-light, electron transfer occurs from tryptophan that is charge-separated, and the consequent radical pair induces the efficiency of the reaction to be detected, albeit with a weak magnetic field. By using such magnetic receptors in the retina, avians (birds) are assumed to be able to migrate in the correct direction. Here, the historic background for the radical pair mechanism and recent research on both natural and artificial systems related to flavo-proteins are introduced. The forming processes of radical pairs differed between flavoproteins and artificial systems, which were the focus of this study. The latter system was expected to provide other opportunities for precisely controlling the placement. The avian magnetic compass is currently being actively investigated in the field of "quantum biology." I believe biomimetic magnetic sensors can be constructed and applied in the detection of disasters with geomagnetic anomalies and in areas involving energy issues in the future.