World Leading Experts Speak at International Nanoscience Conference at TCD
Posted on: 30 June 2008
World leading researchers have gathered at the 14th International Conference on the Solid Films and Surfaces (ICSFS-14) hosted by the Centre for Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices (CRANN) at Trinity College this week.
ICSFS-14 brings together top class researchers in the area of thin films and surfaces – materials whose properties are responsible for the operation of everyday devices, ranging from computer chips, to iPods, to the lasers found in DVDs and the supermarket checkout.
Commenting on the significance of the forum, the conference chair and TCD’s CRANN Director, Professor John J. Boland said: “This meeting brings together leading experts at a time when there are so many exciting advances in material and device concepts. Moreover, it provides a wonderful platform to showcase the very significant levels of research and innovation at Irish universities”.
The conference features presentations from leading international scientists, describing new materials and devices. The experts include:
Dr. Stanley Williams from HP Quantum Science Research, one of the most internationally renowned nanotechnologists who describe recent advances that have the potential of creating a paradigm shift in how computers are made and how they operate. Present day computers can be traced back to the discovery in 1956 of the semiconductor transistor switch. The performance of the computers we enjoy today is the result of printing ever smaller device patterns onto silicon wafers. The technical challenges associated with this approach are becoming increasingly costly and difficult to implement and there is a worldwide race to develop alternatives. Dr. Williams describes how this transistor based logic – now historically entrenched – is just one of several possible approaches to computation. Instead he advocates a new type of switch based on nanometre scale wires that can be made to exist in two different forms; one conducting and the other non-conducting. He describes the advantage of the new switches and their implications for future computer design and performance.
Professor Andre Geim speaks about graphene – a revolutionary material comprised of just a single atom thick sheet of graphite – the material found in common pencil lead. Graphene is the thinnest possible material in the universe. Although this super thin material was long thought to be unstable, the opposite was recently discovered by Prof. Geim and his team at the University of Manchester. Now there is a worldwide race to develop methods to synthesise graphene in sufficiently large quantities to test its properties and to make useful devices. Graphene has strange and wonderful properties that are only beginning to be understood. For instance, the electrons in graphene behave as though they have no mass, and they seem to move at speeds approaching the speed of light where their behaviour is best described using Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. For these reasons graphene may make possible the development of super-fast computer chips that operate with extraordinary energy efficiencies. What’s more, the relativistic speeds of the electrons in graphene may make it possible to test theories in high energy physics – tests that typically require multi-million euro linear accelerators – can now be performed using a graphene flake taken from a line drawn by a simple pencil.
Dr Stuart Parkin from the IBM Almaden Research Center describes recent breakthroughs in magnetic recording which have made possible popular devices such as the Apple iPod, not to mention the disk drives found in all computers and laptops. All these devices make use of a property of the electron known as its magnetic spin, which causes some materials to be magnetic. Like normal magnets with north and south poles, electrons can have spins that point either up or down but are typically found in equal measures so that most materials are non-magnetic. However, Dr. Parkin and his team have developed combinations of materials that produce large numbers of electrons with the same spin, which has led to the new field of research known as spintronics. These developments were directly responsible for the near tera-bit memory available in iPods, which allows over 50,000 songs to be stored. The ultimate spintronic application, however, is to replace the transistor switches at the heart of present day computers, with switches that operate by flipping the electron spin – a prospect that will not only lead to faster computers but computer that require much less electricity to operate.
This conference was made possible by the generous support of Science Foundation Ireland, together with a broad consortium of industry sponsors.