From Nanoscale Structure to Nanoscale Function (NS2NF)

随着我们在非常小的范围内对材料进行越来越大的控制，一个新的可能性世界将打开，供我们研究它们的科学兴趣，并利用它们的技术利益。在科学和技术中，纳米通常指微小的东西，尺寸以十亿分之一米为单位。在这个尺度上，结构必须根据单个原子的位置和它们之间的化学键来理解。电流的流动可以表现得像波浪一样，其效果就像两块相隔很小距离的石头在池塘表面上的涟漪一样。电子的行为就像微小的磁铁，可以在智能手机中提供非常精确的计时。碳纳米管可以像吉他弦一样振动，就像一个音符的音高可以通过手指改变一样，所以它们可以对单个分子的触摸敏感。在所有这些效应中，我们需要了解纳米尺度上的功能与纳米尺度上的结构之间的关系，这需要综合运用科学的技能和方法。首先，我们必须能够制造我们将要使用的材料。这是化学领域，但它也涉及新碳材料的生长，如石墨烯和单壁碳纳米管。第二，我们需要制造我们将要测量的微小装置。最常见的是，我们使用电子束来图案化我们需要的结构，尽管我们也使用很多其他方法。第三，我们需要看到我们所做的，并知道它是否符合我们的意图。为此，我们再次使用电子束，但现在是在显微镜下，可以成像单个原子是如何排列的。第四，我们需要测量我们制造的东西是如何运作的，例如电流是如何流过它的，或者它是如何振动的。我们实验室的一个重要的新发展是使用机器学习来选择下一步要测量的内容。我们为自己设定了一个目标，即在五年内，机器将决定下一个实验应该是什么，达到二年级研究生的标准。平台资助更新“从纳米尺度结构到纳米尺度功能”将为一个卓越的研究团队提供基础支持，他们将汇集这种研究所需的技能。它建立在当前平台资助“分子量子器件”的成功基础上。这笔赠款为团队及其职业发展提供了至关重要的支持。技能的结合，以及对共同目标的承诺，使团队能够取得否则不可能取得的进展。例如，我们团队广泛的互补技能对于我们开发出一种在石墨烯中制造纳米间隙的方法至关重要，该方法现已获得专利。这导致了制造分子量子器件的可重复和稳定的方法，这是该赠款的核心主题。平台资助的更新将支持其他主题，这些主题也建立在当前资助的成就之上，并且需要类似的技能来确定纳米尺度上的功能如何取决于纳米尺度上的结构。您可以通过激励研究人员获得资助的问题来了解将要进行的研究。这里有一个选择。我们能把量子控制扩展到更大的东西吗？分子尺度的磁铁能被电流控制吗？分子如何导电？我们如何在光和微波之间传递信息？我们如何在一个实验中测量一千个量子设备？我们设备中的原子是否在我们想要的位置？计算机能决定下一步测量什么吗？随着我们在这些问题上取得进展，我们将更好地理解纳米尺度上的结构如何产生纳米尺度上的功能。这种理解反过来又为新发现和新技术提供了基础。

As we gain ever-greater control of materials on a very small scale, so a new world of possibilities opens up to be studied for their scientific interest and harnessed for their technological benefits. In science and technology nano often denotes tiny things, with dimensions measured in billionths of metres. At this scale structures have to be understood in terms of the positions of individual atoms and the chemical bonds between them. The flow of electricity can behave like waves, with the effects adding or subtracting like ripples on the surface of a pond into which two stones have been dropped a small distance apart. Electrons can behave like tiny magnets, and could provide very accurate timekeeping in a smartphone. Carbon nanotubes can vibrate like guitar strings, and just as the pitch of a note can be changed by a finger, so they can be sensitive to the touch of a single molecule. In all these effects, we need to understand how the function on the nanoscale relates to the structure on the nanoscale.This requires a comprehensive combination of scientific skills and methods. First, we have to be able to make the materials which we shall use. This is the realm of chemistry, but it also involves growth of new carbon materials such as graphene and single-walled carbon nanotubes. Second, we need to fabricate the tiny devices which we shall measure. Most commonly we use a beam of electrons to pattern the structures which we need, though there are plenty of other methods which we use as well. Third, we need to see what we have made, and know whether it corresponds to what we intended. For this we again use beams of electrons, but now in microscopes that can image how individual atoms are arranged. Fourth, we need to measure how what we have made functions, for example how electricity flows through it or how it can be made to vibrate. A significant new development in our laboratory is the use of machine learning for choosing what to measure next. We have set ourselves the goal that within five years the machine will decide what the next experiment should be to the standard of a second-year graduate student.The Platform Grant renewal 'From Nanoscale Structure to Nanoscale Function' will provide underpinning support for a remarkable team of researchers who bring together exactly the skills set which is needed for this kind of research. It builds on the success of the current Platform Grant 'Molecular Quantum Devices'. This grant has given crucial support to the team and to the development of their careers. The combination of skills, and the commitment to working towards shared goals, has empowered the team to make progress which would not have been possible otherwise. For example, our team's broad range of complementary skills were vital in allowing us to develop a method, now patented, for making nanogaps in graphene. This led to reproducible and stable methods of making molecular quantum devices, the core subject of that grant. The renewal of the Platform Grant will underpin other topics that also build on achievements of the current grant, and which require a similar set of skills to determine how function on the nanoscale depends on structure on the nanoscale.You can get a flavour of the research to be undertaken by the questions which motivate the researchers to be supported by the grant. Here is a selection. Can we extend quantum control to bigger things? Can molecular scale magnets be controlled by a current? How do molecules conduct electricity? How can we pass information between light and microwaves? How can we measure a thousand quantum devices in a single experiment? Are the atoms in our devices where we want them? Can computers decide what to measure next? As we make progress in questions like these, so we shall better understand how structure on the nanoscale gives rise to function on the nanoscale. And that understanding will in turn provide the basis for new discoveries and new technologies.