ABSTRACT: Nanotechnology is the emerging field of building materials and devices atom by atom to harness the small-scale "quantum" properties of nature. One nano-meter is about one millionth of a centimetre or 5 atoms side by side. This field unites physicists, chemists and biologists in order to understand how nature works at the atomic level and how we can control it. It is expected that the ability to manipulate individual atoms and molecules will revolutionise the 21st century in the same way that the invention of the transistor led to the Information Age.

Todays manufacturing methods at the molecular level are very crude – its like trying to make things out of lego blocks with boxing gloves on. In the future nanotechnology will allow us to take the boxing gloves off. This lecture will trace the history of how nanotechnology has developed and what tools we require to observe and manipulate atoms. By going to this small scale we can see how the properties of materials change from obeying classical physics to the more unfamiliar quantum physics.

In particular the lecture will highlight the new and exciting International research program in Quantum Computing that has recently been established in Australia. The ability to build a computer from the atomic level upwards will allow us to exploit quantum physics and may produce the world’s most powerful computers.
 

SPEAKER PROFILE: Michelle Simmons began an interdisciplinary career with a double degree in physics and chemistry at the University of Durham in England. This cross-disciplinary training proved invaluable for her subsequent PhD research at Durham where she developed and fabricated ultra-high efficiency solar cells. She then moved on to become the first female post-doctoral researcher in the Semiconductor Physics group at the University of Cambridge (the largest research group in the U.K.) developing ultra-pure quantum electronic devices. She is currently a Queen Elizabeth II Fellow at the University of New South Wales working to understand further the fundamental nature of electrical conduction in quantum devices. She is also a program manager at the new Centre for Quantum Computer Technology at UNSW collaborating with physicists at Queensland, Melbourne, Maryland, Caltech and Los Alamos.

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