Field emission gun scanning electron microscopy (FEG-SEM) is a type of microscopy capable of producing very high resolution images of the surface of a sample. It has a wide range of applications in biological and materials science in which researchers wish to visualise and analyse the surface of a sample over a wide range of magnifications. Field emmision gun scanning electron microscopy can be used to image over a large surface area, can be used to image bulk materials as well as thin films or spots and modern microscopes can image structures as small as one or two nanometres. Conventional FEG-SEM requires samples to be imaged under a high vacuum which means that specimens, for example biological materials which are wet, would produce a lot of vapour which interferes with the images. To visualise biological specimens by conventional FEG-SEM the specimens have to be dried and coated, which can distort images of structures. Another form of SEM, called environmental SEM (ESEM) allows samples to be visualised in low pressure gaseous environments and high humidity which means that biological samples can be imaged in their hydrated state either directly or in the frozen state. In this application we are seeking to replace a conventional SEM which is 27 years old, still requires film processing (does not acquire digital images) and frequently breaks down. We wish to purchase a versatile high resolution low-vacuum FEG-SEM and a cryo-workstation. The microscope is critically required for a large number of current and future projects in biological sciences, in particular research in tissue engineering, biomaterials, structural molecular and cellular biology. The microscope requested, is the most versatile high resolution feild emmision gun electron microscope available with extended low-vacuum capabilities. A major feature is that it does with a single tool, what used to require multiple systems. The scanning electron microscope has three modes of operation: high vacuum, low vacuum and environmental scanning (ESEM). The resolution achievable under different modes is 1-nanometres. The equipment will directly replace the old SEM in the current electron microscope unit in the Faculty of Biological Sciences. No refurbishment will be required. The use of the equipment will be supported by a Faculty funded full time technician. The microscope will be used to image a range of different specimens carried out by numerous researchers and postgraduate students. Examples of specimens that will be imaged include three dimensional collagenous scaffolds which are used in tissue engineering, cells adhering to and growing in tissue engineering scaffolds, nanoparticles produced by biomaterials used in hip and knee replacements, nanoparticles in body tissues and in environmental samples, virus particles, fibrils of proteins that cause disease such as amyloid and prion proteins and proteins that cause muscles to contract and bacteria to move.

In this research programme, planetary scientists and engineers from the University of Glasgow and the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre have joined forces to answer important questions concerning the origin and evolution of asteroids, the Moon and Mars. The emphasis of our work is on understanding the thermal histories of these planetary bodies over a range of time and distance scales, and how water and carbon-rich molecules have been transported within and between them. One part of the consortium will explore the formation and subsequent history of asteroids. Our focus is on primitive asteroids, which have changed little since they formed 4500 million years ago within a cloud of dust and gas called the solar nebula. These bodies are far smaller than the planets, but are scientifically very important because they contain water and carbon-rich molecules, both of which are essential to life. We want to understand the full range of materials that went to form these asteroids, and where in the solar nebular they came from. Although they are very primitive, most of these asteroids have been changed by chemical reactions that were driven by liquid water, itself generated by the melting of ice. We will ask whether the heat needed to melt this ice was produced by the decay of radioactive elements, or by collisions with other asteroids. The answer to this question has important implications for understanding how asteroids of all types evolved, and what we may find when samples of primitive asteroids are collected and returned to Earth. Pieces of primitive asteroids also fall to Earth as meteorites, and bring with them some of their primordial water, along with molecules that are rich in carbon. Many scientists think that much of the water on Earth today was obtained from outer space, and consortium researchers would like to test this idea. In order to understand the nature and volume of water and carbon that would have been delivered by meteorites, we first need to develop reliable ways to distinguish extraterrestrial carbon and water from the carbon and water that has been added to the meteorite after it fell to Earth. We plan to do this by identifying 'fingerprints' of terrestrial water and carbon so that they can be subtracted from the extraterrestrial components. One of the main ways in which this carbon was delivered to Earth during its earliest times was by large meteorites colliding with the surface of our planet at high velocities. Thus we also wish to understand the extent to which the extraterrestrial carbon was preserved or transformed during these energetic impact events. The formation and early thermal history of the moon is another area of interest for the consortium. In particular, we will ask when its rocky crust was formed, and use its impact history to determine meteorite flux throughout the inner solar system. To answer these questions we will analyse meteorites and samples collected by the Apollo and Luna missions to determine the amounts of chemical elements including argon and lead that these rocks contain. Information on the temperature of surface and sub-surface regions of Mars can help us to understand processes including the interaction of the planet's crust with liquid water. In order to be able to explore these processes using information on the thermal properties of martian rocks that will soon to be obtained by the NASA InSight lander, we will undertake a laboratory study of the effects of heating and cooling on a simulated martian surface. Hot water reaching the surface of Mars from its interior may once have created environments that were suitable for life to develop, and minerals formed by this water could have preserved the traces of any microorganisms that were present. We will assess the possibility that such springs could have preserved traces of past martian life by examining a unique high-altitude hot spring system on Earth.

Our previous platform grant (PG) was aimed at developing the residual stress and imaging unit to extend our measurement and imaging capability beyond existing time and length scales and to become a world leading centre. This has now been achieved. The international impact of our research was recognised by the award of the most prestigious prize in the HE sector, the Queen's Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education (2012-2014) for "New Techniques in X-Ray Imaging of Materials Critical for Power, Transport and Other Key Industries." Further we have just been awarded £18m by HEFCE and £4.2m by EPSRC for capital investment to achieve a step jump in our instrumentation. This PG renewal will enable us to invent new, and develop emerging, techniques to see in 3D events that have never been seen this way before. This will maximise the benefit of the capital investment bringing together X-ray and electron imaging to examine materials behaviour under demanding environments. Many of the instruments will be completely new. The PG will enable us to have a multidisciplinary team of mathematicians, detector experts, instrument developers and applications materials scientists to explore new regimes and undertake new science. For example, normally X-rays pictures are collected in black in white (just like the x-ray radiographs in hospitals). We have developed a detector that can see in 'colour'. This will enable us to 'see' the composition of the objects in our 3D images. Normally X-ray imaging can see different phases but not the grains making up the materials. Recently together with scientists in Denmark and at the European Synchrotron in Grenoble we have developed a method to see the different grains inside a sample non-destructively. Currently this must be done using synchrotron X-rays at large facilities - we will develop a laboratory system capable of this. Finally we have recently been awarded an 5 x EPSRC Centres for Doctoral Training and we will train these PhD students in the imaging techniques we develop through the PG.

This is a proposal to purchase a state-of-the-art transmission electron microscope (TEM). TEM is an essential technique for biological research, because it is currently the best way of visualising cellular and sub-cellular structures in great detail / in favourable cases at the molecular level. Because these machines are expensive and time-consuming to maintain, we propose to share the microscope between 3 partner institutions which are adjacent to each other in Norwich: the John Innes Centre, the Institute of Food Research and the Biological Sciences Department of the University of East Anglia. The proposed microscope would have the capability of carrying out 3D reconstructions of sub-cellular structures, which would overcome one of the most significant limitations of biological electron microscopy / that only a 2D picture of the biological structures is nomally produced. The equipment will be used to train many students and other scientists in the use of TEM, which is important as fewer and fewer biologists are learning these skills. It will provide a crucial part of a wide range of research across the partner institutions, from basic plant cell biology and microbiology at John Innes to food science at IFR and biomedical research at the University of East Anglia. The new machine will replace very old machines at the three sites which have reached the end of their useful life and will soon be impossible to maintain.

Information technology and the Internet are central to our society and these technologies require storage of digital information on an exponentially increasing scale. There are two principal types of storage: traditional hard disk drives (HDD) that provide high density storage at low cost, and solid state drives (SSD) that offer less capacity at greater price, but are more power efficient and have no mechanical parts. While most personal computing and related electronic devices are migrating to SSD the need for HDD is also increasing - in a local context (e.g. personal TV and video recorders) and also remotely, particularly in cloud computing. Cloud computing is a rapidly growing sector, where already almost all of e-commerce and the internet and much of the engineering industry rely on data farms filled with large numbers of 'server' computers using HDD to store information. These data range from personal information such as bank details and social media through to environmental data, data related to health and company and institution specific data. Cloud computing accounted for 25% of storage use in 2010 and by 2020 it will account for >60% - a server is required for every 600 smartphones or 120 tablet computers. As a result, HDDs of ever increasing capacity are required. Due to the limitations of current materials, a new technology will be needed to increase the density of magnetic data recording at the present rate, and it envisaged this technology will be heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR). HAMR will require the integration of photonic components such as lasers, waveguides and plasmonic antennas within a magnetic recording head. HAMR will only be successful if it can be deployed as a low-cost manufacturable technology. Its successful development will therefore drive low-cost photonic integration and plasmonic technology into other industries and applications. The CDT will address the challenge with a critical mass of partners from universities and industry to meet this challenge and undertake the training of successive cohorts of research students in a set of cognate technical topics: - Ultra-reliable semiconductor lasers operating in hostile environments (the laser may have to operate at temperatures of 100 degree C) - Low cost planar lightwave circuit (PLC) platforms and laser and antenna coupling schemes, suitable for volume manufacture - Novel nanoplasmonic antennas capable of operating in extreme environments (200-300 degree C and pressures up to 10 atm. at the disk/head interface) - Advanced materials for magnetic recording - Atomic scale analysis techniques This suite of technologies must be highly manufacturable and suitable for heterogeneous integration in a rugged platform. The successful development of HAMR technology will see a paradigm shift in the performance of data storage devices but the low-cost ruggedized heterogeneous integration technology will also be applicable in multiple markets. Although the HAMR environment is particularly harsh, many other consumer and society driven applications (such as widely deployable high speed internet) also require operation in harsh environments. Our industry partners have identified that distributed working is an element missing from existing doctoral training. Much R&D in cutting edge technology is undertaken collaboratively across geographically separated sites because of the need to thread together expertise and capability that is often not co-located. It is important that doctoral students gain experience in this way of working and develop the skills and strategies to become adept and effective in this environment. The technical capability required to address the range of photonic and heterogeneous integration requirements for advanced data storage does not reside within one single University in the UK and therefore collaboration across the partner university sites provides the vehicle for delivering training in distributed working.