King's College London Experimental Equipment

1. 'Advanced Materials for Nanophotonics'
Advanced Materials is one of the 8 Great Technologies designated by BIS and marked by EPSRC for prioritised investment. In turn, photonics and nanophotonics is one of the most penetrating technologies of the 21st century with impact in areas of information processing, solar energy harvesting, biomedical sciences, security sensing and many others. Development of new research directions and novel applications in nanophotonics requires access to appropriate nanofabrication and characterisation equipment. The facility will combine a range of state of the art instruments for fabrication of ultrasmooth and ultrathin (< 1 nm) layers and nanostructures and their characterisation with functionalities currently not available in London. The equipment requested will strengthen present research activities in plasmonic and nanophotonics while opening up new avenues of research such as electron beam-induced nanophotonics and nanoscale quantum optics.

2. 'Single-Molecule Biophysics and Photonics'
Understanding the physical mechanisms governing life has been, and still is, one of the most significant scientific challenges of humanity. The molecular mechanisms by which each individual process occurs remains largely unknown, as it requires capturing the (often fast) dynamics of an individual molecule over large periods of time. Single molecule techniques have recently allowed the tracking of individual molecules, either by the use of light (eg. fluorescence STED) or by the use of mechanical force (Magnetic Tweezers, AFM). The equipment requested will be a hub of bespoke single molecule instrumentation, unique in the world, that will unveil the physical laws behind important biological questions. For example, capturing fleeting molecular processes; investigating the physical models that govern protein folding; characterising the phase behaviour of lipid membranes on sub-resolution length scales and investigating the role of lipids on a range of cellular processes.

3. 'Ultrafast spectroscopy for Nano-, Bio- and Chemical imaging'
The proposed facility provides a coherent and efficient platform dedicated to both the near and far-field non-linear optical characterization of nanostructured and biological materials and systems. A laser scanning microscope system will enable a simultaneous "multidimensional" characterization of these samples providing, in addition to polarization, spectral and angular resolution, information about processes below nanosecond timescales, and spatial resolutions of the order of the wavelength of light. The system will provide access to laser excitation with pules durations below 25 femtoseconds, providing a powerful pulsed optical excitation of samples. A pulsed white-light laser source will provide a source for a scanning near-field optical microscope to probe non-linear optical properties on the nanoscale.

4. 'Tactile Internet'
Driven by ultra-reliable & ultra-low delay networking technologies, along with developments in haptics and edge intelligence, the Internet as we know it will be dwarfed by the emergence of a to-date unprecedented Internet, the Tactile Internet. It will be able to deliver physical, tactile experiences remotely and invoke a fundamental shift from content-delivery to skillset-delivery networks. The equipment requested will create new networked autonomous robotic systems, combining telecommunications, robotics and AI planning. This unique combination will allow us to: explore unsolved problems in telecoms; test novel approaches to autonomous planning in geographically distributed production and service systems; test novel communication protocols of robotic remote proxies for haptic exploration of objects in a variety of sectors; test novel algorithms in remote servicing; test novel large-scale applications of AI planning and test the unique juxtaposition of communications, actuation and intelligence through the integration of all the above.

'Advanced Materials for Nanophotonics'; 'Single-Molecule Biophysics and Photonics'; and 'Ultrafast spectroscopy for Nano-, Bio- and Chemical imaging'

The proposed facilities aim at providing, to all UK researchers, innovative fabrication and characterisation capabilities for advanced nanophotonic and biomaterials down to the single molecule scale. This will complement the vibrant activity in the UK nanophotonics, nanotechnology and biophysics arenas. It also provides exciting new instrumental capabilities that can open up new research directions on processes occurring at the nanometer/single molecule scale. Photonics and nanophotonics are the key enabling technology in many fields and applications and their role in the future is only expected to rise, providing novel disruptive solutions needed for photonics industry growth, as emphasized in the EC H2020 workprogramme, the Photonics21 report: Towards 2020-Photonics driving economic growth in Europe, and the US National Academies document: Photonics-Essential Technology for our Nation. It produces economic and social impact, both directly, as well as through the leverage effect on photonics-enabled applications and markets. The proposed facilities will enable new understanding and development of new applications in interdisciplinary nanophotonics and biophysics research, enhancing functionality of nanophotonic, opto-electronic, biophotonic and chemical applications that go beyond the limits of current technologies. The facilities have the potential to contribute to four of the Great Technologies designated by BIS, namely, big data and energy-efficient computing, advanced materials and nanotechnology, energy and its storage, and quantum technologies through development of new nanophotonic approaches and applications, the interrogation of living cells and single molecules. Particular fields of impact we want to highlight are information technology; energy production, conversion and storage; medical diagnostics and treatment; chemical technologies, overlapping the three Grand Challenges (Energy, Health, and Environment) set by the EPSRC with significant impact on Advanced Materials and Understanding of Physics of Life areas.
In tackling those challenges, the output of the multidisciplinary research enabled by these instruments, along with the training of skilled technicians and researchers, will also directly impact the economic success of the UK, eventually providing the basis of the development of key emerging industries.

'Tactile Internet'

The Tactile Internet is a quantum leap prospect for the global economy (estimated to power 20% of the world's GDP by 2030) and is thus a unique opportunity for the UK to underpin its leadership role in this development. The Tactile Internet - having reached widespread adoption or being deployed at needs - will enable important disaster operation applications such as remote monitoring/surgery of people in need (e.g. applicable in Ebola hit areas); it will enable remote education (e.g. a child in Gaza is taught painting); it will enable industrial remote decommissioning and servicing capabilities (e.g. the remote reparation of a broken car in Africa); among many other important applications. By combining telecommunications, robotics and AI planning, and creating an intelligent information infrastructure, will create new capabilities in the UK and lead to new knowledge in areas such as human-robot interactions and inter-robot interactions as well as strengthening the national mobile 5G developments by academic & industry players. Gaining a position of leadership in these areas will help position the UK at the forefront of Tactile Internet developments worldwide.