Research on plasma-wall interaction at DIFFER: a tungsten target is exposed to an intense plasma beam in the Magnum-PSI installation. Photo: Bram Lamers / FOM Institute DIFFER
On 16 April, Halbe Zijlstra, the Dutch State Secretary for Education, Culture and Science, opened the new FOM Institute DIFFER in Nieuwegein. DIFFER is the Dutch Institute for Fundamental Energy Research, previously known as the FOM Institute for Plasma Physics Rijnhuizen. Rijnhuizen was founded in 1959 to be the Dutch centre for fusion research. In 2011, funding agencies FOM and NWO decided to broaden the institute's mission to fundamental energy research.
DIFFER has as its motto Science for Future Energy and wishes to become a leading institute for fundamental energy research. The institute will continue its strong fusion-related research, and will also start a separate research line into solar fuels, the storage of fluctuating sustainable energy in the form of chemical fuels. To facilitate a closer cooperation with academic researchers in these fields, DIFFER will move to a new laboratory building at the campus of Eindhoven University of Technology in 2015.