At the opening of the Southampton
Nanofabrication Centre yesterday (9 September), Professor Ian Diamond, Chair
of Research Councils UK, described it as a "beautiful building", which
will place Southampton as part of an excellent UK network better than anywhere
in the world.
 | | New Mountbatten Building |
Commenting on the Centre, which is housed in the University of Southampton’s
new Mountbatten Building, Professor Diamond said:
‘When I was asked to speak at the opening of this facility, it took
me all of a nanosecond to say how privileged I felt to be asked ...We have supported
the University of Southampton for the past 60 years and feel sure that this
new facility will result in the University continuing to win a very high number
of grants from the research councils.’
Professor Harvey Rutt, Head of the University’s School of Electronics
and Computer Science welcomed over 200 industrialists to the occasion which
is the culmination of a four year journey, and has culminated in a £55M
facility - one of Europe's leading multidisciplinary and state-of-the-art clean
room complexes.
‘When our clean room facilities in the old Mountbatten building were
lost in a fire in 1995, our Vice-Chancellor made a pledge that we would deliver
a facility that was better than anything we had ever had,’ said Professor
Rutt. ‘As a result of that pledge, we have a truly fantastic facility
that positions us at the cutting edge of nanotechnology.’
The equipment in the new facility, which includes an Orion Microscope and a
Focused Ion Beam, will make high-speed, non-volatile and low-power computer
memory a reality and make it possible to carry out fast prototyping and to develop
smaller, faster and more powerful single electron devices. Research teams are
also working on a method of mass producing point of care blood testing kits.
Other guest speakers at the opening event included: Dr Larry Scipioni, Director
of Applications Research, Carl Zeiss SMT Inc.; Dr David Williams, Chief Research
Scientist and Lab Manager, Hitachi Cambridge Laboratory; Dr Chris Winter, Partner,
New Venture Partners UK and Professor Peter Ashburn, Head of the Nano group
at the School of Electronics and Computer Science.
The opening presentations were followed by clean room tours where industrialists
viewed the training and research potential afforded by the facility.
Posted September 9th, 2009
|
