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Tim Tsarfati wins first FOM Valorisationchapter Prize

Submitted by admin on Tue, 01/12/2009 - 09:50

30 November 2009
The FOM Valorisation Chapter Prize, which will be awarded for the first time in Januari 2010, will be conferred to dr. Tim Tsarfati. He receives the prize for the last chapter of his PhD thesis "Surface and interface dynamics in multilayered systems", which he successfully defended at Twente University in June 2009. With this new prize, the FOM foundation wants to stimulate its PhD students to give special attention to the questions of valorisation and possible application of their research in their thesis. The winner of the prize receives a sum of €5,000, to be spent freely.

 

Tsarfati did his PhD research at the FOM Institute for Plasma Physics Rijnhuizen, supervised by prof. Fred Bijkerk. The research is part of the FOM Programme 'eXtreme UV Multilayer Optics' (XMO), an Industrial Partnership Programme (IPP) in cooperation with the German optics firm Carl Zeiss SMT. In this IPP, work is done on mirrors for extreme ultraviolet light (EUV), which will be used in the next generation of lithography machines for the computer chip industry. The mirrors consist of 100 alternating layers of molybdenum and silicon, each layer having a thickness in the order of the wavelength of the light that is to be reflected; this wavelength is around 13 nanometers. This means that every layer is only a few tens of atoms thick and needs to be very smooth on that scale. The Rijnhuizen department working on these multilayer mirrors, nSI, holds the world record for EUV-reflectivity. The mirrors reflect some 71% of the incoming EUV-light, almost the theoretical maximum.

 

Tsarfati's work focused on the design of the multilayer mirrors and on extending their lifetime. He developed various interlayers and coating layers to combat intermixing, contamination and erosion of the mirrors, even during extensive EUV exposure.

 

The Valorisation Chapter prize was awarded to Tsarfati because he very specifically described the possible applications of his results and because he gave realistic estimations of the feasibility of such applications of his research. Tsarfati's work on promoting valorisation of research has resulted in his appointment as 'Valorisation Officer' at the FOM Institute for Plasma Physics Rijnhuizen.

 

 

Contact

Dr. Tim Tsarfati, telefoonnr. +31 (0)30 609 69 87

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