Valorisation at Rijnhuizen
The FOM Institute for Plasma Physics Rijnhuizen pays much attention to the transfer of scientific results to the public domain and the application as new technology, i.e. valorisation. In accordance with the FOM valorisation policy, there is collaboration with industry on the basis of Industrial Partnership Programs wherever possible. As such, the nanolayer Surfaces & Interfaces (nSI) department is involved in material science that has enabled the special type of multilayer optics at the heart of new generations of integrated circuits production. The research, partially funded by international industry, including ASML and Carl Zeiss SMT AG, regularly results in patents accompanying scientific publications.
The Fusion Physics and Plasma Surface Interaction (PSI) departments both deliver an important scientific and technical contribution to the buildup of the international fusion experiment ITER. This experiment, currently built in southern France, will be instrumental to delivering sustainable energy via commercial nuclear fusion. Via ITER-NL, contacts are established with over 200 Dutch companies, of which several dozen are actively involved in the development of essential components.
The department Generation and Utilization of TeraHertz radiation (GUTHz) at Rijnhuizen operates and exploits the international user facility FELIX, the Free Electron Laser for Infrared eXperiments, and has established contacts with numerous international universities and institutes that use FELIX to carry out experiments, in particular in the field of biomedical, -chemical, and -physical research as well as condensed matter physics. The facility is open on a fee basis for propriatory research by industry and explicitly in the frame of an Industrial Partnership Program.
Rijnhuizen offers a weekly podium for external speakers to stimulate the interaction and to encourage researchers to consider possible applications of their work. The institute continuously pursues new collaboration and application possibilities in research projects. For PhD students, FOM offers a valorisation course and a prize for the best valorisation chapter in their thesis. T [dot] Tsarfati [in_the_middle] rijnhuizen [dot] nl (Dr. Tim Tsarfati), the winner of this prize in 2009 with the thesis "Surface and Interface Dynamics in Multilayered Systems" (PDF), is responsible for the valorisation policy at Rijnhuizen. He is reachable by phone at +31 (0)30 6096 987.
