00.00 Wide
shot of TV Edit Suite
Close
ups on a variety of display screens
Wide
– tilt up to show screens
c.u
Editor
Editor
picks up mobile phone
Close
up on mobile phone
Exterior
– University of Durham
Exterior
– Physics Dept.
Pan
– Photonic Institute – Prof Monkman walks through
shot
Guide Voice: An edit suite in central London
where a video editor is putting together a TV programme. Without
the science of photonics our modern world would look very
different. Screens and display panels are all around us in every
day life and they all owe their existence to the control and
manipulation of light – photonics. Our mobile phones are a
perfect example of the value we place on smaller, brighter and more
portable display screens.
At Durham University, in the north-east of England, the new
Photonic Materials Institute brings together scientists from a
range of disciplines to advance research in Photonics - both on
display technology and a wider range of applications.
00:37 SOT: Professor Andy Monkman, Director of
Photonic Materials Institute, University of Durham -
“The simplest way to describe photonics is the
interaction of light with matter. So, can you control light and
make it do things for you? Or, can you use light to do useful
things for you such as number crunching, processing, can your
computer run on light? So, for anyone who works on anything to do
with that; they’re working in photonics.”
01:00 Pan
left to reveal Laser Spectroscopy Laboratory
c.u.
Researcher (Simon King – Phd Student) adjusting Laser
system
Wide
– polymer sample in spectroscope
c.u.
polymer sample emitting light
c.u.
laser adjustment
Wide
– researcher and laser
c.u.
laser detail
c.u.
paper being introduced to check laser focus
c.u.
spectroscope screen
c.u.
laser light with particles
Guide Voice: The focus for Professor Monkman
and his team is on the next generation of materials with specific
photonic properties. They’re working with organic materials,
such as polymers, to create Organic Light-Emitting Diodes; these
are constructed by sandwiching a series of ultra-thin polymer
layers between electrodes. When current passes through these layers
the charge recombines on the polymers and generates visible
light.
Unlike the current Liquid Crystal Displays, OLEDs can be both
ultra thin and flexible - they show every potential to be cheaper,
lighter and more power efficient than existing systems.
01:38 SOT: Prof Monkman – “When
we build these organic devises they’re incredibly thin. The
actual emission layer, the layer where electrical current is turned
into light is only 100 nanometres thick and that’s the active
organic material. All you need then to make a device is to put a
cathode and an anode on either side of that thin layer – so
the whole device, notionally, could be 100 – 150 nanometres
thick.”
02:04 Wide
– Clean Room and Technician
c.u.
technician picking up glass substrate sample
Wide
– technician carrying sample to OLED Evaporator
c.u.
– glass sample placed in OLED Evaporator
Wide
– technician closes OLED Evaporator and moves to control
panel
Wide
– researcher (Hameed Al’ Attar – Research
Assistant) in Fluorescence Laboratory
c.u.
researcher placing sample for analysis
c.u.
researcher
Wide
– researcher
Researcher
at computer
c.u.
computer screen
Wide
– Prof. Monkman joins researcher at computer
c.u.
Prof Monkman and computer
c.u.
researcher
c.u.
computer screen
Guide Voice: Currently OLEDs use glass as the
substrate, to give them the required robustness, but the future of
this technology lies in producing plastic film substrates that will
give the OLEDs the strength they need combined with a flexibility
that will one day allow us to simply roll up our computer screen
when it’s not in use.
Durham University’s advanced research into Photonics opens
up a world of opportunities in a range of applications, including
optical data storage and optical computing, sensors and probes for
chemical, industrial or biomedical analysis and testing,
laser-based cutting tools – even the possibilities of solid
state lighting that could revolutionise the way we light our
buildings.
But perhaps one of the most exciting possibilities rests in new
concepts using photonic science in medicine.
The researchers are looking at ways to measure the nucleotide
sequence on DNA, using luminescent polymers. The polymer is used to
absorb light and then transmit it to a protein nucleic acid, which
has read a specific DNA sequence. Only when the PNA has correctly
read the DNA sequence does it light up. In this simple way doctors
would be able to identify mutations in patient DNA that could
indicate developing illness.
The principal behind the methodology has been proved to work
and, though there is still a considerable amount of development
work to be done, the aim is to introduce bio photonics to the world
of medical diagnostics.
03:28 SOT: Prof. Monkman –
“If we can get the system working based on light and
optics you can have a system where you can scan twenty patients an
hour. And what’s more you might be able to do that in the
doctors surgery so you wouldn’t even have to have samples
sent away to be evaluated in a hospital, you could do it there and
then, perhaps; Ideally in a matter of minutes. So therefore
there’s this whole push now to be able to do much more
analysis in the doctor’s surgery so we can say, there and
then, the problem with the patient or not and that’s one of
the things we’re looking at, in the much longer term, that
optics will allow us to do.”
04:03 Silhouette
of researcher at Laser
c.u.
laser adjustment
c.u.
laser light
Wide
– researcher
c.u.
rainbow light through laser
Guide Voice: Roll up display screens, solid
state lighting that’s paper thin, medical diagnosis at the
touch of the switch – it’s no longer science fiction;
it’s photonics!
04:16 END
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