A £357K grant announced today will enable scientists at the University of Glasgow to establish a world-class facility to study, at a near atomic scale, the advanced materials used in semi-conductors, opto-electronics and other leading edge technologies. The award has been won under the Joint Research Equipment Initiative run by the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council, SHEFC.

A multi-disciplinary team of physicists, chemists and electronic engineers has been awarded funding for a focused ion beam (FIB) machine which is capable of preparing slivers of material less than 100 nanometres thick. (A nanometre is one thousand millionth of a metre and covers a distance of about 100 atoms). These slivers of state-of-the-art material will be studied by the team's transmission electron microscope (TEM), one of the most powerful techniques for studying advanced materials on a near atomic scale and which was funded by SHEFC last year.

The combination of the two pieces of equipment - the new focused ion beam machine and the transmission electron microscope, will provide the Glasgow team with a world-class resource, unique in Scotland, to study and develop materials for use in the leading technologies of semi-conductors, opto-electronics and magnetic materials, ultra-hard coatings, oxides and composites for use in the IT, communications and automotive industries, among others.

In addition, the FIB will allow the team to embark on distinctive new scientific programmes. If materials are bombarded with smaller numbers of ions, it is possible to modify the way the atoms are arranged within the material without introducing significant thinning.

Professor John Chapman who leads the team says: "Using this technique the properties of local areas of material: those irradiated by the ion beam, can be changed and possibly tailored for specific applications. As the area irradiated can be smaller than 100 nanometres square there are very exciting possibilities in connection with ultra-small devices. We have plans to use the FIB for studies ranging from magnetic multilayer films for data storage and sensing application to multi-electrode arrays for neurobiological applications."

Media Relations Office (media@gla.ac.uk)

For further information contact the University Press Office: 0141 330 3535

or Professor John Chapman: 0141 330 4462 j.chapman@physics.gla.ac.uk

First published: 19 December 2000