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Research in the Department of Electronic & Electrical Engineering at the University of Sheffield has generated economic impact through the creation of a spinout company, Magnomatics Ltd, commercialising high performance electric drives, in particular those employing magnetic gearing technologies. Magnomatics employs 35 full-time staff, had a turnover of £1.4M for the year 2012, and its technologies are now being developed for applications in utility scale wind turbines, hybrid vehicles and marine propulsion.
Research at the University of Cambridge, Department of Physics on sensitive techniques for measurements of magnetic and electrical properties of materials led to the selection of Dr Michael Sutherland as an expert witness in a series of major police investigations involving fraudulent bomb detecting equipment. Scientific evidence Dr Sutherland presented in court was key in securing guilty verdicts, leading to the breakup in 2013 of several international fraud rings with combined revenue in excess of £70 million. This criminal activity had caused significant damage to the reputation of the UK in Iraq and elsewhere.
UCL's discoveries of the existence of magnetic flux ropes in the solar atmosphere and their link to sunquake generation have stimulated public interest in science and led to a large volume of engagement activities. Since 2008, there has been a high demand for public and schools talks related to research conducted by staff within the Department of Space and Climate Physics — also known as the Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL) — with attendees being inspired and gaining increased knowledge. Teaching resources and talks at teacher training events have enabled teachers to include MSSL research in inspirational science lessons. Sustained and on-going relationships have been developed with local schools, adult education groups, the media and the local community; for example, at the 2009 MSSL open day visitors from the local area benefited from raised awareness and improved knowledge about space science.
Theoretical and computational methods for optimising the design of gradient and shim coils with arbitrary shapes and topologies were developed in collaboration with Magnex Scientific as part of a CASE award (2004-07). The resulting software was licenced to Agilent (who now own Magnex Scientific), for whom it has opened up new market opportunities in the supply of novel magnetic resonance imaging systems, leading to £3.4M sales since 2009. The software has also been used by Paramed Medical Systems to improve their `open' magnetic resonance imaging systems, which are optimised for orthopaedic imaging, allow vertical subject posture, and facilitate image-guided treatment, as well as offering a better patient experience. Our work has thus resulted in impact in the economy and healthcare.
Groundbreaking UCL research and development of magnetic nanoparticles for biomedical applications led to the introduction in 2012 of the world's first licensed nanoparticulate injectable medical device, the Sienna+ tracer, and its associated detection system, the SentiMag. A UCL spinout company, Endomagnetics Ltd., has introduced this new technology to better diagnose and treat cancer without the need for invasive surgery. The system uses magnetic materials, rather than radioisotopes, to locate the sentinel lymph nodes that are the key indicators of the spread of cancer away from the primary tumour site. As well as improving patient outcomes, the system considerably improves hospital workflow and efficiency since, unlike radioisotopes, the injectable magnetic tracer (Sienna+) is readily available and requires no special handling
Nottingham researchers constructed the world's first 3T MRI scanner, thus demonstrating the viability and benefits of high-field MRI. This provided a stimulus for magnet and MRI system manufacturers to develop 3T scanners, which have now become established as the standard platform for high-end clinical MRI studies. We estimate that since 2008: 2500 3T scanners have been installed, representing a global investment of $5 billion;and 30-40 million patient examinations have been performed with 3T MRI scanners. Technical advances which underpinned the Nottingham 3T scanner also impacted on the development of functional MRI, thus opening up a new field of medical research and clinical application. In a subsequent phase of research, the Nottingham group developed ultra-high (7T) magnetic MRI in partnership with PhiIips; forty 7T MRI scanners (current unit cost >$10M) have now been installed across the world.
A device developed for spintronics research at the University of Oxford has been adapted as the basis for robust, high-performance position or composition sensors to detect many different materials including metals, plastics, ceramics and fluids. These sensors are capable of making contactless measurements in very hostile environments. A spin-out company was formed in 2004 to exploit and apply this technology to a wide range of technical and engineering problems and has achieved over £2.5m revenue. These sensors form the key elements of products that have been successfully deployed in automotive and other transport applications. Benefits to end users include ease of use, speed and the cost savings.
Since 2009 the read heads of all hard disks have used a technology based on magnesium oxide (MgO). The development of this technology can be partly attributed to a 2001 publication [3.1] co-authored by Dr Andrey Umerski of The Open University, which concluded that a system based on MgO would lead to a huge increase in magnetoresistance, a physical property that determines the efficiency of hard disk read heads.
In 2004 these theoretical predictions were confirmed experimentally; by 2008 the new type of read head based on MgO was manufactured commercially, leading to significant increases in storage capacity, from GBs to TBs.
XMaS is a dedicated materials science beamline at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF). It develops and disseminates novel instrumentation and sample environments that allow new experiments which support emerging technologies. By commercialising the intellectual property through licenses to companies economic impact is derived directly. Further economic impact is facilitated through knowledge transfer by trained people and expertise in new processes, which enhances the capability, capacity and efficiency of other central facilities. Public interest and awareness are engendered through individual research projects being highlighted in the media and through people's skills and experience being utilised in a broad range of sectors.
Heat capacity is the measurable physical quantity that specifies the amount of heat required to change the temperature of an object or body by a given amount and is an important quantity to establish in any application that requires knowledge of the thermal response of a material. It is quite usual in the development of new materials that the volume of material available in single crystalline form is limited, and the ability to measure small samples sensitively has particular importance for this reason. We claim a dominant influence on the design of an ultrasensitive heat capacity microcalorimeter that is now sold by the UK company Cryogenic Ltd as a heat capacity option for their cryogenic measurement systems. The microcalorimeter makes it possible to measure ultra-small samples, particularly magnetic samples that are invisible to other commercial probes. Research was carried out within Imperial's Physics Department in 2003-04 to develop the instrumentation; the design was published in 2005 after which it transferred to UK company Cryogenic Ltd. In the past three years the approximate total sales of the heat capacity option at Cryogenics amount to £500K, as a valuable component of a physical properties measurement system with a total sale value in the region of £2M [section 5, source E].