Ultra Precision Surfaces - Translation Grant

表面的特征，如光滑度或粗糙度，平面度或弯曲度，是现代生活的许多方面的原因。汽车轴承就是一个明显的例子。即使在简单的数码相机中，玻璃镜头的精确表面也是最终图像清晰度的关键。此外，我们的文化很大程度上依赖于计算机行业，而计算机行业又依赖于微芯片。但在幕后，它们的制造对用于投射使其工作的微图案的大型透镜的精度要求越来越高。自2004年以来，来自伦敦大学学院和克兰菲尔德大学的一个团队在北威尔士的一座新建筑--Optic Technium--建立了国家超精密表面设施。EPSRC在420万美元的“超精密表面：新范式”项目下资助了这一项目。该团队一直在开发制造机器，安装世界上最先进的设备，用于制造和测量直径达一米的精确表面。更雄心勃勃的是，该团队正在探索过程之间的相互作用;如何使从原料玻璃到成品组件的链条尽可能高效。嗯，在太空和地面上都有许多新的需求！其中最令人兴奋的是下一代真正巨大的天文望远镜，它由数百个镜面组成，每个镜面直径约一两米。这些望远镜将在星系形成的时候寻找它们，并在其他恒星周围寻找类似地球的行星;甚至寻找生命本身的微弱迹象！镜像技术很可能最终改变我们的文化看待它在宇宙中的位置的整个方式！随着为期四年的项目圆满结束，是时候问，下一步怎么办？这就是翻译补助金可以发挥重要作用的地方，作为过去和未来之间的“水泥”。在实验环境中取得成功是一回事，将其成果应用于工业则完全是另一回事。因此，首要任务是将当前科学阶段的成果转化为适合工业使用的形式。这将需要进行繁琐但至关重要的实验，以完善这些过程将如何提供完全相同的结果：一次又一次。此外，如何改变工艺“配方”，以加工一系列不同的材料。然后，在制造大型表面时存在一些实际问题，对于熟练的科学家团队来说，制造大型表面很容易，但需要针对工厂环境进行更多工作。更广泛地说，我们正在开发的流程可以适应我们申请基础技术补助金时无法预见的应用。例如，我们几乎不知道望远镜的镜面技术可能有助于解决世界能源危机！但这是真的！在地球上，驯服典型星星--比如我们的太阳--内部产生能量的聚变过程确实是最有希望的长期答案。其中一个项目将把高功率激光聚焦到一个微小的目标上，将其温度提高到数百万摄氏度，这是点燃核聚变所需的。如何聚焦？由一个大的分段镜，就像那些建议的超大望远镜！但这不仅仅是在不同的环境中使用相同的镜子。在相机或望远镜中没有影响的微小缺陷可能会导致高功率激光光学器件的故障。因此，一项重要的新工作将是开发将这些缺陷减少到绝对最低限度的工艺。还有其他令人兴奋的应用，例如用于聚焦X射线的特殊表面（例如用于医学成像），以及可以弯曲以纠正其他地方错误的柔性反射镜的制造。翻译补助金将提供与行业和其他科学家合作的灵活性，以抓住这些和其他机会并建立基本的可行性。然后，我们将有信心进行更多实质性的计划，以进一步发展这项技术。

Features of surfaces, such as smoothness or roughness, flatness or curviness, are responsible for many aspects of modern life. Bearings in motorcars are an obvious example. Even in simple digital cameras, precise surfaces on glass lenses are responsible for the ultimate image sharpness. Moveover, much of our culture relies on the computer industry, which in turn depends on micro-chips. But behind the scenes, their manufacture demands ever-increasing accuracy in large lenses used to project the micro-patterns that make them work.Since 2004, a team from University College London and Cranfield University has established the National Facility for Ultra Precision Surfaces in a new building - the OpTIC Technium in North Wales. EPSRC funds this under the 4.2m 'Ultra Precision Surfaces: A New Paradigm' project. The team has been developing manufacturing machines, installing the world's most advanced equipment for making and measuring precise surfaces up to a metre across. Even more ambitiously, the team is exploring interplay between processes; how to make the chain from raw glass to finished component as efficient as possible.Why bother? Well, there are a host of emerging demands in space and on the ground! One of the most exciting is the next generation of truly enormous astronomical telescopes, tiled with hundreds of mirror-segments, each around a metre or two across. These telescopes will look for galaxies back at the time they formed, and search for earth-like planets around other stars; even for the feeble signs of life itself! Mirror technology may well end up changing the whole way that our culture looks upon its place in the universe!As the four-year project draws to a successful conclusion, it is time to ask, what next? This is where the Translation Grant can play an important role as the 'cement' between past and future. It is one thing to be successful in an experimental setting; quite another to apply the results industrially. So the first priority is to translate the results from the current scientific phase into a form suitable for use by industry. This will demand tedious - but crucially important - experiments to perfect how well the processes will deliver exactly the same result: over and over again. And also, how the process 'recipes' need to be changed for working a range of different materials. Then, there are practical issues in making large surfaces that are easy with a team of skilled scientists, but requiring some more work for the factory environment. More broadly, processes we are developing can be adapted to applications unforeseen when we applied for our Basic Technology grant. Little did we know, for example, that the mirror-tile technology for telescopes might help solve the world's energy crisis! But this is true! Here on Earth, taming the fusion processes that make energy within a typical star - such as our own sun - is indeed the most promising long-term answer. One project will focus high-power lasers onto a tiny target, to raise its temperature to the millions of degrees C, needed to ignite fusion. How will the focussing be done? By a large segmented mirror much like those proposed for the extremely large telescopes! But this isn't just a case of using the same mirrors in a different context. Micro-defects that have no effect in cameras or telescopes can cause failure of high-power laser optics. So an important piece of new work will be to develop processes to reduce these defects to the absolute minimum possible. There are other exciting applications, such as peculiar surfaces used to focus X-rays (e.g. for medical imaging), and manufacture of flexible mirrors that can be bent to correct for errors elsewhere. The Translation Grant will give the flexibility to work with industry and other scientists to seize these and other opportunities and establish basic feasibility. Then, we will have the confidence for more substantial programmes to develop the technology furthur.