Annual report 2008 | Visitors guide Rijnhuizen published

1 July 2009
The Annual report 2008 has been published. The report contains an overview of events of the last year and a discussion of the most important scientific results. It also includes the visitors guide, in which all the groups at the institute are described. Moreover, data on funding and scientific output are collected in the appendix.

2008 was the year of the evaluation by an external panel of the whole institute, which concluded that the research at Rijnhuizen was “very good to excellent.” It was also the year in which the first external user of the new FELICE beam line of the FELIX facility was welcomed. The new beam line produces much higher infrared intensities that allow experiments with molecules in the gas phase, that have a very low infrared absorption.

The Rijnhuizen initiated FUSENET agreement, aimed at streamlining the undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral education on nuclear fusion in Europe, had it’s kick-off in 2008. Two Rijnhuizen PhD-alumni were awarded an EFDA Fusion Fellowship, and one of them (Ivo Classen) also received a price from the European Physical Society for the best PhD thesis in plasma physics. A visit of the Dutch minister of economic affairs accompanied by a delegation of Dutch industry to the ITER construction site generated much public attention for fusion in general and the ITER project in particular.

Significant scientific progress was made in 2008 in the understanding and control of erosion and diffusion-degradation of multilayer mirror systems, which may lead to longer lifetime of the XUV optics in realistic applications. Furthermore, the study of rotaxanes (elongated 'molecular machines') resulted in high-level scientific publications and attention from the general public and media.