ARCNL welcomes students at first Meet-Up@ARCNL event

On Monday, May 18th, ARCNL held its first Meet-Up@ARCNL event for students looking for master and PhD projects.

The group of approximately 20 students in physics and chemistry had been selected for this event based upon their CV’s and motivation letters. At ARCNL they were introduced to the world of nanolithography and the scientific puzzles ARCNL intends to solve. During the lab visits, ARCNL postdocs and group leaders demonstrated their experiments and talked about their scientific goals. For instance, one of the tasks Dr. Oscar Versolato (EUV Plasma Dynamics) has set for himself is to find out more about the acceleration of ions in the tin plasma that is used to generate EUV light in ASML’s lithography machines. How can they become so fast? The answer to this fundamental scientific question will be useful for future nanolithography instrumentation.

The students completely filled up ARCNL’s meeting rooms, where they listened to lectures by ARCNL group leaders and by Wim van der Zande (ASML, director of research). They also engaged in highly inspiring brain-storm sessions about one of the scientific and technological challenges in the field of nanolithography. ARCNL director Joost Frenken was pleased to see such a large group of participants: “ARCNL wants to double in size and still needs many bright scientists who are eager to push the boundaries in physics and chemistry”.