00:00 Researcher
at computer in Nano Fabrication Lab
c.u.
and zoom in computer chip
c.u.
chip placed on examining block
Exterior,
Durham University with Cathedral in background
University
of Durham “Science Laboratories" sign
Pull
focus through equipment to reveal researcher
Researcher
placing object in microscope
Guide Voice: The drive towards miniaturisation
has long been an important part of modern manufacturing,
particularly in the world of electronics.
At Durham University, in the north of England, the Nanomagnetics
group are involved in developing tiny magnetic circuits that take
miniaturisation to a new level, producing objects that are
miniature to the point of being close to single atoms in size.
00:25 SOT: Dr. Russell Cowburn, Head of
Nanomagnetism Research Group, University of Durham –
“I spend most of my days making tiny, tiny magnets and
really trying to find new uses for them. One of the things
that you find is that when you make materials very, very small, you
don’t just end up with a smaller version of the large bulk
material, but actually the laws of physics change and those
materials start to do things that have no equivalent on a larger
scale. So my interest is in engineering tiny magnetic
structures which we call nano magnets and using those new laws of
physics that kick in when you shrink to such a small size, and
trying to use those new laws of physics to do new things and new
applications.”
01:02 Researcher
at computer
c.u.
object on computer screen
c.u.
object on monitor screen
c.u.
hand on computer mouse
Object
being manipulated on monitor screen
Guide Voice: One such application is the
further miniaturisation of computing power. Working with
nano-magnets to use the magnetic spin features of atoms in new
forms of electronics and computing.
01:13 SOT: Dr. Russell Cowburn
– “If you crack open your laptop computer,
you’ll find a microchip in there and the smallest object, the
smallest feature we tend to call it, inside the microchip is about
a hundred and fifty nano metres or so, and that’s the limit
to today’s miniaturisation. But from a fundamental
point of view, speaking as a physicist, there’s really
no reason why we shouldn’t miniaturise all the way down to
the atomic scale and when you do, you find that the laws of physics
change quite dramatically and it allows you to do things that you
couldn’t do previously. And I think that’s really
part of the interest in nano technology, it’s accessing the
new physics that happens on very small length scales and using that
to do new things with.”
01:52 Researcher
working on Thin Film Deposition
c.u.
hand
c.u.
face
computer
screen
Researcher
at computer
Screen
showing silicon chip under extreme magnification
Screen
viewed over researcher’s shoulder
Guide Voice: Using this technology it will
eventually be possible to build smaller, cheaper and cleaner
products for computing, medicine, materials science and
environmental conservation. Nanotechnology applied to micro chips
and circuitry means that future generation computers could be
considerably more efficient and powerful.
02:14 SOT: Dr. Russell Coburn –
“I hope the future of nano technology is a vibrant
manufacturing industrial base, new science being discovered and new
applications for that science. I’m pretty convinced
that the science fiction ideas of replicators and grey goo -
I’m pretty convinced there is no factual basis in those
whatsoever, from where I’m sitting we are many hundreds of
years away from even being able to dream about such things and to
be honest we don’t necessarily need them, there are some very
exciting things that can be done in nano technology that in an
earlier generation, really would have been called product
development or product refinement.”
02:50 Sign:
Royal Society – Wolfson Nanotechnology Laboratory
Wide
– Dr Cowburn and researcher
Close
as above
Researcher
at Atomic Force Microscope
c.u.
face
c.u.
microscope image on monitor
Wide
– Researcher at University’s NanoMOKE machine
c.u.
handresearcher at operating station for NanoMOKE (Nano Magneto
Optic Kerr Effect)
slow
zoom in on NanoMOKE
Detail
– lens
Detail
– lens
Pan
across machine to computer screen
c.u.
computer screen
Researcher
viewing magnified silicon on screen
c.u.
magnified silicon
Guide Voice: For Dr Cowburn’s team at the
University of Durham product development is already a reality. One
of the difficulties of nano technology is the lack of tools capable
of working on such small length scales. Realising they would not be
the only people in the world to need that sort of instrumentation
they formed Durham Magneto Optics Limited, selling highly
specialised machines for nano technology research. Their
machine allows a laser beam to be focused down to a very fine point
that can then be dropped, with very high precision, onto any part
of the inside of a chip. Once the laser light is there, it can be
used to assess the magnetic properties of a nanostructure.
They’re currently exporting all over the world and have a
second machine in development that will allow small research labs
who want to get into nano technology to produce micro chips much
more cheaply than current technology requires. For the members of
Durham’s nanotechnology research team good things come in
very, very small packages!
03:50 End
of Cut
Additional material
03:53 Short
graphic showing scale of nanotech materials
04:05 Sequence
showing Dr. Cowburn entering and working in Laser Lab
04:42 End
