A FURNESS firm has won a Government grant to realise a £1.27million project that will use nanotechnology to consign the humble light bulb to the history books, reports Jennie Dennett.

Ulverston-based Forge Europa, of Princes Street, is in celebratory mood this week after the Department of Trade and Industry gave £500,000 to its research programme to refine Light Emiting Diodes or LEDs (inset, right) by manipulating materials one-millionth the size of a pinhead.

The money will be used by Forge Europa along with project partners Semelab of Leicestershire and post-graduate researchers at Cambridge University and Greenwich University to develop nanophosphors' for displays and lighting.

It is hoped the research will eventually create more jobs at the 12-year-old Ulverston design and development firm which currently employs 25 staff, although how many jobs is not yet known.

Company founder and managing director Peter Barton explained that, at the moment, it was difficult to get LEDs to give good quality, consistent white light.

As part of the project, Cambridge researchers will refine high quality blue LEDs while Greenwich will research nanophosphors tiny particles which can transform that into white light. LED specialist Forge Europa - whose lighting displays are used in everything from traffic lights to car dashboards - will then be the test centre using its automated test facilities to see which ideas are the bright ones and which are the duds.

Mr Barton said the technology would be a key scientific discipline for the 21st century.

"LEDs could take over from domestic filament light bulbs. They last longer, they emit far less heat, they have no moving parts and they are much smaller so you can do a lot more with them architecturally. They are also far more energy efficient which is more environmentally friendy and will save a stack of power stations and money."

The project is one of 25 to get a share of £18million of Government funding the first payout from a £90 million micro and nanotechnology manufacturing initiative.

Announcing the grants, DTI minister Nigel Griffiths said: "Nanotechnology is an important and exciting emerging technology, one that has the capacity to improve daily life for us all.

It is about designing new products and improving existing ones by making things, smaller, faster, stronger or more energy efficient.

"We want to help organisations turn ideas into reality, helping create jobs and prosperity for companies in the UK."

The DTI believe the nanotech industry could be worth $1 trillion (a million millon) in the next decade although it has many detractors, not least Prince Charles. Earlier this year his comments urging caution in the manipulation of molecules led to alarming reports warning that the planet could be turned into "grey goo" by microscopic, self-replicating robots, smaller than viruses.

But Mr Barton assured that the research at Forge Europa was nothing to do with "grey goo" scenarios.