Professor Harvey Rutt will take over as the head of the School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, on August 1

Why did you abandon CMOS research after the fire at the university in 2005 and what are you replacing it with?

CMOS is incredibly important. It has led to the technology all around us right now. But research should be about the technology of the future, and the end of the CMOS road is in sight. It's very contamination-sensitive, and doesn't allow us to try out new ideas with strange materials. So running a reliable CMOS line limits our scope to do innovative long-range research. We will still use CMOS from foundries, and may even make some; but it won't be the research focus.

We'll replace it with a broad range of devices based on nanotechnology, such as carbon nanotubes, quantum dot structures and, possibly, devices that draw their inspiration from biology, particularly the ways in which living systems self-assemble their structures; my brain was once the food on my plate.

What sort of devices will this lead to?

Hopefully ones that are smaller, faster, cheaper and lower-powered. But it will be different to the CMOS paradigm which is highly reliable and reproducible. It's unlikely that our new devices will reach this level and we may have to first understand how to make reliable systems that do what we want using devices that are much more variable and less reliable.

Does the process of commercializing research work leave you cold?

Absolutely not! Fundamental research in universities has a very important role to play both in our understanding of the world in an abstract - almost artistic - sense, and in developing whole new applied areas, such as modern electronics. I currently have application-focused research going on in my group that will be wasted if it's not exploited for commercial purposes. We want our research to be used.

Do undergraduates have an increasingly disappointing basic science education when they get to university? If yes, what should be done?

At school level there has been a tendency to broaden studies and make them more descriptive and less quantitative. But science and engineering is fundamentally about numbers and needs precision; you can't do it with words. Building an aeroplane or a mobile phone requires the accurate, numerical design of a host of components. Good mathematics is essential because it is the language of science and engineering. Additionally, more needs to be done to really enthuse children at primary school level - as my teachers enthused me.

We hear you fly, climb and dive - are you escaping from the dangerous and adrenalin-fuelled world of semiconductor physics?

You only live once! I find it revitalizing to get away from my desk, especially if I've been stuck at it for too many months, and to experience something so completely different. A week of diving in the Red Sea, a climbing trip, even an hour piloting myself, can really recharge the batteries and give me a whole new set of ideas. There's definitely more to life than work and I really believe in working hard and playing hard.

See http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/