"We are an academic startup!" exclaims Prof. dr. Joost Frenken, director of the Advanced Research Center for Nanolithography, only two minutes into the interview. Indeed, it soon becomes clear that ARCNL is an innovative, fast-growing research center that dares to dream big.
Pushing the boundaries
"Few people realize that almost all of the world's computer and memory chips are produced with lithography systems – most of which are created by ASML, here in the Netherlands. A chip is built like a complex building, storey by storey, using photographic projection -lithography- with which you project the architecture of the building onto a light-sensitive layer, a multitude of which combine to create the chip. Unlike buildings, you want to make chips as small as possible, and so we use nanolithography to make the projection incomprehensibly small, and super, super precise. We are talking atoms here. ASML takes the lead when it comes to technological developments in this field, which succeed each other at breakneck speed. You hit the boundaries of what physics allows. That's why, two and a half years ago, ASML reached out to the academic world, a unique step, to co-operate in pushing the boundaries of knowledge in this field above and beyond." The Advanced Research Center for Nanolithography was born.
Location is everything
"Many people would have thought it more logical if we had settled in the Brainport region around Eindhoven. But Amsterdam offered an enormous influx of people and knowledge: AMOLF and both universities (VU and UvA) wanted to collaborate. Additionally, several renowned Amsterdam-based academics offered to adapt their research to fit ARCNL's endeavors. ASML is our main industrial partner. We speak the same language and exchange our observations, which benefits both the Brainport and Amsterdam region.”
What no other startup has done before
"A year and a half ago we started with nothing – no building and no employees. Now we employ more than fifty people, occupy two buildings, and are executing experiments. That is something I have never seen an academic startup do before, not in the Netherlands or anywhere in the world. Often people have an amazing idea for a business but don't know how to organize it in terms of governance. That was our great advantage: we were set up as a copy of AMOLF, just smaller, and were given access to all their facilities and resources. We are the cuckoo in the nest and off to a flying start."
Entrepreneurial researchers
"ARCNL is not an extension to the ASML company; we are an independent center that does fundamental research. Collaboration with the industry -ASML has the first right of refusal- means that our research is inspired by actual problems and can find a practical use in high tech engineering. Our scientific discoveries are the groundwork for industrial inventions. ARCNL has a unique approach in that we ‘raise’ entrepreneurial researchers. We coach them to document their discoveries so that these can be used for inventions; this way our researchers work with more focus on the applicability of their research."
To be the best you need the best
"This is a global game, and so we get our talent from all over the world. To be of interest to the best scientists in the world ARCNL needs to be an autonomous research centre that allows for huge academic liberties. ASML never questioned this independence. We started spreading the word that we are a research centre with a specific mission -validating top knowledge- and that news traveled fast. We aim to meet an academic need of many young researchers, who want to work on the academic forefront and get results that serve a societal purpose. Many don't care about the science fiction of what we will know in the future, but of what we will do with that knowledge. And so we effortlessly get applicants."
Talent in the Netherlands
"Interestingly enough, most applicants initially came from beyond the Dutch borders. So we set up the concept of Meetup@ARCNL, targeting young researchers within the Netherlands to come and brainstorm about a technologically complex question dealing with nanolithography. They had to apply with a motivation letter and CV, which naturally provided a selection of motivated people. We were pleasantly surprised about the number and quality of talents that turned up."
The dream
"The biggest dream is that ARCNL delivers on its promise: that the academic world appreciates the scientific relevance of our research center while ASML sees a return on investment. If that's where we will be in five years then we will be able to speak of a successful experiment. Personally my dream is that ARCNL's research will take such flight that we will have helped to make the smartphone redundant. We will all be wearing our phones as ear stud that is connected to a contact lens projecting visuals onto our retina. If it can be imagined it can be made."