FOM and FEI lay the foundation for the next generation of electron microscopes
The FOM Foundation and FEI are starting a new FOM Industrial Partnership Programme aimed at three innovations in electron microscopy devised by university researchers. Fundamental research with beams of charged particles is resulting in new technologies. These lie at the basis of the next generation of electron microscopes, which could also image relatively large biological tissues with a high-resolution. Over the next five years, FOM and FEI will collaborate on this research together with the technical universities of Delft and Eindhoven. The programme has a budget of 2.8 million euros. A good 300,000 euros of this amount comes from the TKI allowance that TKI HTSM has awarded to FOM. The programme will be led by professor Pieter Kruit from Delft University of Technology who won the FOM Valorisation Prize in 2011.
In an Industrial Partnership Programme (IPP) FOM links academic knowledge to industrial ambitions by realising high-quality physics research in collaboration with companies. This is not the first time that FOM and FEI have joined forces: they have worked together since 2007.
Bridge science – engineering
On Friday 7 November the programme started with a festive launch meeting at the Applied Physics Faculty of Eindhoven University Technology in the laboratory of the Coherence and Quantum Technology group led by FOM workgroup leader and co-applicant of the IPP, Jom Luiten. During this afternoon it became clear how this programme is realising a fantastic bridge between science and engineering. The CTO of FEI, Jens Greiser, is therefore looking forward to the first results: "It is a beautiful example of how co-creation with our technology partners and clients is playing an increasingly important role in innovation. However in these cases, FEI always asks itself which foundation is being laid for the following generation of products with which we can acquire new clients. In this collaboration with excellent scientists I expect to see concrete results quickly!"
Further information
For further information please contact:
Prof. Pieter Kruit, programme leader, +31 (0)15 278 51 97.
Dr. Victor Land, IPP office FOM, +31 (0)30 600 12 17.
On FOM's YouTube channel you can find the short video fragment about Physics & Industry at FOM