University of Surrey

The University is the national academic centre for ion beam technology and has been at the forefront of academic and joint academic/industrial programmes in this field. The University pioneered the use of ion beams to analyse important technology problems in the context of health care, the environment and the durability of building materials, as well as in electronic materials. It invented the strained-layer quantum-well laser in the 1980s, which now generates the signals in every long-haul optical fibre in the world, and is in nearly all domestic appliances using lasers, such as CD and DVD players, as well as powering the Internet, memory devices and printers.