News

NWO-I has appointed Marco de Baar for a second five-year term as director of DIFFER. The first five years were marked by introducing a new strategy and collaborations with leading (inter)national players.

Fusion energy may be the holy grail of clean energy, but harnessing its complex processes and machinery is a daunting task. Researchers at DIFFER think the solution to fusion may not only lie in deeper physics understanding but also in an engineering approach to self-steering systems.

A collaboration between AMOLF, CWI and DIFFER has received funding from NWO-I to launch the joint project ‘HELIOS: AI-guided materials discovery facility for solar energy materials’.

Future fusion power plants will need wall materials that do not crack or melt under the intense heat inside. In his PhD research, mechanical engineer Jos Scholte (TU/e and DIFFER) studied if liquid metals can act as a protective layer for the exhaust wall. He successfully defended his PhD thesis on 3 June 2025.

What if one technology could help tackle climate change on Earth and support future missions to Mars? A recent PhD study shows that this is not just science fiction, but a promising reality. On Tuesday 27 May 2025 PhD researcher Xingyu Chen defended her thesis called ‘The Plasma–Solid Oxide Interface: An experimental study of plasma-enhanced surface processes'.