We intend to develop a new user-friendly technology that would enable small devices to be cooled to exceedingly low temperatures (<100mk). Such a capability will allow diverse and futuristic applications to flourish. These include the detection of black holes, cancer detection and quantum computing. We propose to do this by using an electronic cooling process where relatively energetic (hot) carriers (electrons or holes) quantum mechanically tunnel out of a medium, thereby causing the average electronic temperature in the medium to decrease. The application of this process to realise extremely low temperatures is very new, and we want to greatly improve its efficiency by introducing a new generation semiconductor SiGe into the design of the electronic cooler and, along with it, the well developed silicon processing techniques - so that, ultimately, such coolers can be produced economically and to industrial standards. Coolers will be fabricated around the periphery of a small silicon chip with thermal links to the active device ( payload ) mounted in the centre of the chip. This requires very good thermal design such that the electronic cooler efficiently cools the payload. However, in some cases, it is only necessary to cool the electrons / not the lattice atoms; here SiGe gives a lot of flexibility in controlling the thermal coupling between the electrons and the lattice. Such electronic coolers can operate from a starting temperature of 0.3K, which can be produced by a cryogenic fluid-free closed-cycle helium cryostat, so that a turn-switch technology can be envisaged enabling access to ~10mK working environments. This will be a huge technology step forward, as existing techniques require massive and complex cryogenic fluid-based equipment.During the first phase of the project we will examine several approaches to the realisation of effective electronic cooling, exploiting the wide range of fundamental electronic conditions that can be obtained at very low temperatures in SiGe with its associated metal silicides / thereby enhancing carrier transport and thermoelectric effects. The new coolers will then be tested in two areas of great topical interest, namely radiation detectors and quantum information devices. They could dramatically enhance our ability to detect, for example, the photons that emanate from the earliest black holes, with satellite-based detectors operating at <100mK. And, very significantly, such detectors could revolutionize the fluorescence light detection that is used extensively in biomedical research, enabling advances in our understanding of genetically-based diseases (e.g. cancer) and the workings of a single cell. Furthermore, the computational vista that is opened-up by the quantum computing era requiring qubit devices operating at 10-20mK, is truly awe inspiring. Warwick is co-ordinating the project and has assembled a tightly knit consortium of scientists and engineers with appropriate expertise from four UK universities -Warwick, Cardiff, Leicester and London(Royal Holloway) - and four leading-edge companies, concerned with the development of this technology and the demonstration of its applicability and advantages in two key areas. We are also working closely with Europe's leading centre on mK coolers (Helsinki University of Technology). The UK is exceedingly well positioned to derive benefit from this genuinely new and exciting technology, and this project will sow the seeds for its realisation.

The Innovative Manufacturing and Construction Research Centre (IMCRC) will undertake a wide variety of work in the Manufacturing, Construction and product design areas. The work will be contained within 5 programmes:1. Transforming Organisations / Providing individuals, organisations, sectors and regions with the dynamic and innovative capability to thrive in a complex and uncertain future2. High Value Assets / Delivering tools, techniques and designs to maximise the through-life value of high capital cost, long life physical assets3. Healthy & Secure Future / Meeting the growing need for products & environments that promote health, safety and security4. Next Generation Technologies / The future materials, processes, production and information systems to deliver products to the customer5. Customised Products / The design and optimisation techniques to deliver customer specific products.Academics within the Loughborough IMCRC have an internationally leading track record in these areas and a history of strong collaborations to gear IMCRC capabilities with the complementary strengths of external groups.Innovative activities are increasingly distributed across the value chain. The impressive scope of the IMCRC helps us mirror this industrial reality, and enhances knowledge transfer. This advantage of the size and diversity of activities within the IMCRC compared with other smaller UK centres gives the Loughborough IMCRC a leading role in this technology and value chain integration area. Loughborough IMCRC as by far the biggest IMRC (in terms of number of academics, researchers and in funding) can take a more holistic approach and has the skills to generate, identify and integrate expertise from elsewhere as required. Therefore, a large proportion of the Centre funding (approximately 50%) will be allocated to Integration projects or Grand Challenges that cover a spectrum of expertise.The Centre covers a wide range of activities from Concept to Creation.The activities of the Centre will take place in collaboration with the world's best researchers in the UK and abroad. The academics within the Centre will be organised into 3 Research Units so that they can be co-ordinated effectively and can cooperate on Programmes.

The goal of cooling materials and structures ever closer to absolute zero temperature has led to significant discoveries in physics and has prompted the development of many new technologies. For example, the phenomena of superfluidity and superconductivity showed that quantum-mechanical effects dominate the behaviour of certain materials at low temperatures. The discovery of the quantum Hall effect has given a new metrological standard for defining voltage, and the discovery of Coulomb blockade may soon allow the ampere to be redefined using devices that generate electrical current one electron at a time. Cooling to very low temperatures can better allow us to observe and control certain materials and structures at a quantum-mechanical level. This continues to drive research in low temperature physics and underpins many efforts to realise new quantum technologies such as quantum computation and advanced sensors. Present refrigeration technologies allow certain materials to be cooled extremely close to absolute zero. The limit for continuous cooling is around 1 millikelvin, using dilution refrigeration. Additional cooling based on nuclear demagnetisation refrigeration allows some materials can be cooled to less than a hundredth of this temperature. The biggest challenge in using either of these methods to cool an arbitrary sample is making a good thermal connection between the sample and the refrigerator. At low temperatures thermal connections between materials become very small. This can mean, for instance, that the electrons in the metal wires contacting an on-chip device are at a different temperature to that of the chip, and neither are as cold as the refrigerator. This a particular problem in the field of nanoelectronics where the sample has a tiny active volume with a very weak thermal connection to its surroundings. At present, it is extremely challenging to cool nanoelectronic samples significantly below 10 millikelvin. This project will combine techniques from ultralow temperature physics and nanotechnology to develop new devices that can measure the temperature of electrons in nanoelectronic structures below 1 millikelvin. These thermometers will then be used to build a platform for reaching temperatures of 1 millikelvin or below in arbitrary nanoelectronic samples. Three different thermometers will be studied, before the most promising one is selected for the final stage of the project. All of the thermometers will be essential diagnostic tools throughout the project, informing the development of electrical filters, thermal shielding and refrigeration methods. The new thermometry techniques will give us a better understanding of nanoscale structures in a currently inaccessible temperature range. This is likely to be a significant benefit to many active areas of research in low temperature physics, quantum computing, nanoscience and metrology.

This proposal is concerned with the renewal of the Salford IMRC which was initially established in January 2002. This proposal will extent the life of the Salford Centre for Research and Innovation (SCRI) in the built and human environment, until 2011 and further increase the impact that the centre has created in the first five years of its lifecycle. The rolling research agenda and evolving vision of the Centre has been very well received by the industrial and academic circles, as it has been made explicit by the international assessment panels and this renewal aims to firmly establish the world class status of the centre and increase the performance of UK Plc. The centre brings together significant expertise from three research institutes within the university of Salford and aims to continue its collaboration with more that 60 partners in the industrial and academic communities internationally.

Food contains different types of fat. There are some suggestions that not all the fats are equal and that there is good and bad fat with respect to their effects in the body. Not too much is known about what fat normally does in the cells of the body. We know that fat can be stored, burned, been sent from one organ to another within the body and more importantly fat are important 'bricks' to build up the different components of the cells. Interestingly not all the fats have the same size, the length of some fats is longer than others and we think that the length of the fat species may be an important determinant whether fat is stored or burn. The best organ to study this is a special type of organ known as brown fat present in children and small animals. This organ can do both, making fat and burning fat so it is the ideal organ to investigate the effect of fat length on these two processes. To study fat length we will investigate the effect of lack and/or excess of Elovl6, a molecule that elongates fat from 12 carbons to 18 carbons. Specifically we propose to investigate: 1) if making fat longer can alter the development of the brown fat organ; b) whether eliminating/increasing the capacity of elongating fat makes the animals fatter/leaner and c) less/more capable of making heat. To that end we will use cells and mice in which we will decrease or increase the capacity to make fat longer and then study the type of fat these animals make using very novel techniques that allow us to know all the types of fats that these animals will have. This information will inform us about which fats are good and which ones are bad and will allow us, for example, to modify the diets of humans and animals to ensure that they have the right type of fats to remain healthy.