Unless greater numbers of students are attracted into physics and chemistry our ability to maintain the momentum of the Republic's IT revolution, which has been central to the booming economy, will be seriously hampered. So says Dr John Donegan, the director of the science of materials at TCD. Sitting in his office in a temporary building on the Trinity campus, Donegan points to a sculpted lump of polished silicon, a lilac-coloured laser rod and a roll of optical fibre so narrow it looks like the thread you'd use for stringing beads. Without these, he says, we wouldn't have computers. "Silicon is the heart of your computer," he says. "If you decide you want to use the web to get some information from California, say: first, the silicon comes into play. The information goes down the wire to Eircom, which transfers it on to a laser beam. This beam is transferred to the fibre and is routed to California," Donegan explains.
When we think of the IT revolution, we tend to think of software, but without the materials, the industry wouldn't exist. "If we don't have people working on advanced materials we will be in trouble," Donegan asserts. "We have lots of people working on software - but we also need people working on the foundations if the industry is going to develop." TCD's new undergraduate programme - physics and chemistry for advanced materials - is designed to attract young people into an area of science which will form the basis of 21st century technology. The course, according to Donegan, focuses on the laser materials which have the potential to be the "new silicon" of future computer systems. Of the 250 or so undergraduates who embark on TCD's science programme every year, just under three-quarters opt for biology subjects. Attracting students into physics and chemistry is a real problem, Donegan admits. He hopes that the new physics and chemistry for advanced materials course, which will admit up to 20 students, could play a role in encouraging more people into the disciplines.
Undergraduates embarking on the new programme will enjoy close contact with top researchers in the field, since they will be housed in the newly established Institute for Advanced Materials. This institute, located in the Nasr Building, which officially opened in the autumn and will include parts of the physics, chemistry and electronic engineering departments. The £11 million building, named after a benefactor and TCD engineering graduate, the late Sami Nasr, will house up to 60 researchers along with undergraduate students. "This is an interdisciplinary building - a new idea for TCD," Donegan comments. "Half of the space will be allocated to teaching and half to research. In terms of our research, electronic engineering has done a lot of work on silicon, and physics has a long history of working on laser materials."
The interdisciplinary/teaching/research route is the way to go, Donegan says. Undergraduates are assured that they will be working at the cutting edge. "The fact that we will have undergraduates and graduate students working under one roof means that as new developments come along in research, they will feed quickly into our teaching."
In terms of materials science, both physics and chemistry play a role. "Take the laser rod for example. You need to know how to make it (chemistry) and how it works (physics)," Donegan explains. The top five students coming in via the CAO on to the new course will each receive £1,000 entrance scholarships. "The college is making a statement that it values this type of work," he says. "We want to avoid a situation where the institute would be working effectively in terms of research, but would have little effect on teaching. We want to be effective in both areas and get a good share of the undergraduate intake."
Donegan describes the job prospects for graduates who have combined physics and chemistry in their degree studies as "truly excellent. They're just being snapped up," he says. A major problem, especially in physics, is the fact that students are being lured away from research by the high salaries on offer in industry. "Five years ago, the job situation was bleak," he says. Nowadays, though, most physics and chemistry students have jobs lined up well before they graduate. The reaction of industry to the new undergraduate course has been excellent, Donegan notes. "People are very excited. They say there's lots of engineers and software people coming through, but there's a real need for people working on the basic sciences."
The growing lack of interest in the hard sciences among Irish youth is reflected in other western countries, Donegan says. "There's a world-wide shortage of chemists and physicists," he says. "In the US, they're sucking in large amounts of physicists and chemists from eastern Europe, China and Korea." Large-scale initiatives in the US to attract youngsters into science have failed. When it comes to choosing a prestigious career, scientists don't rate. People with top grades in physics and chemistry invariably opt for medicine. "I see lots of students who are brilliant at chemistry and physics - a lot of them have really enjoyed the subjects chemistry at Leaving Cert - but they would never think about studying these subjects at university."
TCD's materials programme will concentrate on the development of new materials. `We're looking for materials that will be more functional and smart. Take the laser rod, for example. It gives out light and you can use this type of material to make it monitor itself and assess how much light it is producing. Everything is becoming miniaturised. The fact that computers are getting faster means that the components are getting smaller. That's what's driving our work just now."
