Ultra Precision Surfaces - Translation Grant

表面的特征，如光滑或粗糙，平坦或弯曲，对现代生活的许多方面都有影响。汽车轴承就是一个明显的例子。即使在简单的数码相机中，玻璃镜头上的精确表面也是最终图像清晰度的原因。此外，我们的文化很大程度上依赖于计算机工业，而计算机工业又依赖于微芯片。但在幕后，它们的制造要求越来越高的大镜头精度，用于投射使它们工作的微图案。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中建立了国家超精密表面设施。EPSRC资助了420万英镑的“超精密表面：新范式”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。更有野心的是，团队正在探索过程之间的相互作用；如何使从原玻璃到成品组件的流程尽可能高效。何苦呢?嗯，在太空和地面上有许多新出现的需求！其中最令人兴奋的是下一代真正巨大的天文望远镜，由数百个反射镜拼接而成，每个反射镜直径约为1到2米。这些望远镜将在星系形成时寻找它们，并在其他恒星周围寻找类地行星；即使是为了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！随着这个为期四年的项目圆满结束，是时候问一问，接下来会发生什么？这就是翻译补助金可以作为过去和未来之间的“粘合剂”发挥重要作用的地方。在实验环境中取得成功是一回事；将其应用于工业则是另一回事。因此，首要任务是将当前科学阶段的结果转化为适合工业使用的形式。这将需要繁琐但至关重要的实验来完善这些过程如何一次又一次地提供完全相同的结果。此外，为了处理一系列不同的材料，工艺“配方”需要如何改变。然后，在制造大型表面方面存在一些实际问题，这对于一组熟练的科学家来说很容易，但在工厂环境中需要更多的工作。更广泛地说，我们正在开发的过程可以适应我们申请基础技术资助时无法预见的应用。例如，我们几乎不知道望远镜的镜面瓦技术可能有助于解决世界能源危机！但这是真的！在地球上，控制典型恒星（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。其中一个项目是将高功率激光聚焦在一个微小的目标上，将其温度提高到点燃核聚变所需的数百万摄氏度。如何对焦？通过一个大的分段反射镜，就像那些为超大望远镜提出的那样！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会导致高功率激光光学系统的故障。因此，一个重要的新工作将是开发将这些缺陷减少到绝对最小可能的过程。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镜子的制造。翻译补助金将提供灵活性，与工业界和其他科学家合作，抓住这些和其他机会，并建立基本的可行性。然后，我们将有信心开展更大规模的项目，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.