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Dr Franck Natali is a physicist, and a French one. He is aware that physicists can be associated with nuclear bombs and being French he says the link is difficult to sever. He also said that physicists are bad presenters. As we listened on Wednesday last week we all became a bit worried at that stage, but our fears were not confirmed. Franck is not involved with nuclear bombs and was a very good presenter. He did admit later to having an Australian wife, but this was forgiven.
The MacDiarmid Institute, part of Victoria University, is where Franck works on projects which are aimed to benefit New Zealand. He explained that most of his work involves materials which in the old days might have been wood, cloth or bricks. These days the material of choice is silicon and he reckons we are in the silicon age.
However, although silicon is used to help make many of the amazing gadgets and gizmos that we all use to work faster and be cheaper, for the bigger items such as supercomputers there is a problem. Silicon in supercomputers means they use a lot of power. These large computers, which are used for data centres or weather forecasting, currently use around five per cent of all the worlds energy production, and more are being built. As more people want storage for their virtually unlimited photographs and videos they can now take on mobile devices, data storage is even more in demand.
This brings us to more ‘supers’. Franck and his team are working with super-conducting supercomputers which need temperatures down to around minus 250°C. This means they use about 100 times less energy but first need a lot of money and research. The materials being used in this research are rare earth nitrides, in other words the rare-earth elements with which we are all familiar! with added nitrogen for more effect.
For those of you with a good memory the title of this report gives you the clue to the next bit. Franck and his team are making magnetic tunnel junctions at a very small scale, a nano-scale. This nanotechnology process, which works well below minus 200°C, has already been patented and means that a supercomputer which until now may occupy the space in a whole building, with magnetic tunnel junctions, can now be no more than the size of a car. They also use a lot less power.
Good things take time, as cheese makers would say, and the work has already taken 10 years, but at last it is now ready to roll and being made available for the public. Because patent protection has been part of the process, the value to the university and New Zealand will be significant for years to come. Franck concluded ‘Victoria University is a world leader’ and no-one was included to disagree.
Julian Bateson
Over-worked, stand-in, assistant club reporter
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