During the 17th International Symposium on Advanced Plasma Science and its Applications for Nitrides and Nanomaterials (ISPlasma2025) and the 18th International Conference on Plasma-Nano Technology & Sciences (IC-PLANTS2025), EIRES director and DIFFER group leader Richard van de Sanden has been awarded the Plasma Materials Science Hall of Fame Prize for 2024.

Van de Sanden was awarded the prize for his excellent research achievements in plasma materials science for alternative energy technologies required for a sustainable society, and the establishment of an international research institute to apply the academic achievements of plasma materials science to solve global energy issues.
The Plasma Material Science Hall of Fame Prize was established in 2020 to promote further world-wide development of plasma materials science field and to encourage world-wide researchers and research groups with outstanding achievements and contributions to the field. The prize is awarded by the Center for Low-temperature Plasma Sciences, Nagoya University.
Richard van de Sanden is the scientific director of the Eindhoven Institute for Renewable Energy Systems (EIRES) and a professor at the Department of Applied Physics and Science Education of the Eindhoven University of Technology. He is also a research group leader of the Plasma Solar Fuels Devices group at the Dutch Institute for Fundamental Energy Research (DIFFER), where he has been director from 2011 until July 2020.
Van de Sanden received his PhD in 1991 from TU/e on a fundamental plasma physics subject. In 1990, he was appointed Assistant Professor, his main interest being the fundamentals of plasma assisted processing of materials. In 2000, he was appointed as a full-time professor at the Eindhoven University of Technology. He has been the scientific director of EIRES since its launch in 2020. At the DIFFER institute, he focuses on the physics and chemistry of plasma-surface interaction and on research into the direct and indirect conversion of renewable energy into synthetic fuels and chemicals.
Author: Sonja Knols, EIRES
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