AN award-winning Blackburn firm is aiming to go big - by focusing on substances so small they cannot be seen by the human eye.

Millbrook Scientific Instruments has built an international reputation for the design and manufacture of equipment used in the nanoscale investigations of surfaces, coatings and thin films.

The company is now seeking 'promotion' on the Stock Exchange to allow it to raise further cash for expansion. It is planning to move from the junior OFEX market later this month to join the Alternative Investment Market for growing small firms.

The group consists of three operating companies - Millbrook Instruments, Aquila Instruments and Micro Materials - each active in its own niche of nanotechnology, but together having a common customer base consisting of universities, research institutes and industries.

Over the last four years, it has achieved average sales growth of 88 per cent a year and turnover is now running at around £2.5 million per annum, a steep change from the £300,000 when Millbrook listed on OFEX in 2002.

Dr Peter Stefanini, executive chairman, said: "In our case, we are not talking about controversial science fiction-type applications, but much more straightforward developments. For example, films and coatings of nanometre dimensions are becoming more and more common in many products and processes - from architectural glass to biomedical polymers."

Millbrook has a global client base, including prestigious names such as: Cambridge University, General Motors, Daimler Chrysler, Corus, Pilkington, LG Philips, Kodak, TDK, Siemens, BNFL, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.