High Tech

This is an experimental setup at the FOM Rijnhuizen, a research institute into plasma physics. I went on an excursion today to visit the institute.

What you see is a window into a vacuum chamber containing a little silver mirror and controlled traces of argon and other gases I forgot. These mirrors are meant to be used in extreme ultraviolet lithography, but do not work yet because the surface becomes polluted by crystals (which are quite photogenic themselves, but too small to photograph without a microscope). In this setup they're trying to find out which combination of gases and XUV radiation is causing the pollution.

Through the other windows you can see the small silver mirror, but this window is used to let some light into the chamber, coming from a very ordinary Philips light bulb.