Plenary Speakers

Abstract
Nobel Prize Winner, Richard Feynman’s work contains elements of atomic-scale manufacturing needed by industrial requirements of the 21st Century. In the 19th Century, Faraday’s metallurgical researches had laid the foundations for the use of alloy steels, as cutting tools needed in a burgeoning manufacturing industry.
Faraday’s laws of electrolysis saw electroplating and electrolytic dissolution being the mainstay of 20th Century manufacturing.
Electrochemical machining (ECM) has moved from its use in drilling micro-holes in aircraft engine turbine blades to nano-scale ECM.
Replacement of liquid dielectric by aqueous electrolytes has given rise to high-speed drilling of micro-holes more than 10 times faster than EDM in a novel process termed electrochemical arc, or discharge machining (ECAM, or ECDM).
The latter process has been found to have fresh applications in the nano-machining of non-insulating and semi-conducting materials such as glass and silicon.
Electroforming is an extension of electroplating. Its application of reproducing intricate and micro-shapes has seen its emergence to microelectronics.
Both Feynmann and Faraday foresaw the use of electron beam and ion beam nano-scale machining.
At The Royal Institution R.V. Jones on his discourse on “More and More About Less and Less” drew attention to how micro-measurement is vital to nanoscale manufacturing.