Directiva

¿Quien es quién?

Artículos de opinión

Política
científica

Dirk Van Dyck

Dirk van Dyck(1948) studied physics at the universities of Antwerp and Brussels. He became assistant in the group of Prof Amelinckx. He obtained his Phd in 1977 on electron diffraction and microscopy. In 1987 he obtained his aggregate thesis. He was appointed professor in 1988 . At present he is full professor and head of the department of physics of the university of Antwerp. He teaches theoretical physics , image processing and information theory.

Dirk Van Dyck obtained his first scientific success in 1975 by combining the different existing theories for electron diffraction into one universal framework using a new concept of quantum mechanics: the Feynman path integrals. . In 1976 he laid the basis for the interpretation of diffuse intensity patterns. In 1985 he introduced the "real space method" in which electron difraction is described in real sace and which has since proven very succesfull to speed-up the image simulation programs significantly.

In 1987 he published a new method to solve the famous phase problem of electron microscopic imaging by using the microscope focus as a controllable parameter. This method laid the basis of the so called transport of intensity equation wich is now currently used to solve the phase problem is X-ray microscopy . In 1990 he introduced the focus-variation method for the reconstruction of the eletron wave.

Dirk Van Dyck was one of the founding-fathers of the Brite-Euram project(1990- 1994) in which together with Philips Electron Optics a new electron microscope has been constructed which makes use of the focus variation methos to visualise atomic structures with sub-angstrom resolution. Recently using this type of instrument the world record of resolution has been broken by scientists of the LBL Berkeley lab. In 1996 D. Van Dyck published his channelling theory, which describes the dynamical electron diffraction in terms of channeling of the electrons along the atom columns and which forms the basis for the solution of the inverse scattering problem.

In 1991 D Van Dyck and A Verschoren founded the Visionlab in order to establish a center of excellence in image processing. The expertise of the Visionlab has been mainly concentrating on advanced techniques for pattern recognition and multi-image reconstruction. Between 1996 and 2000 ten Phd theses have been succesfully defended. With the arrival of Dr Sasov in 1994 a new desk-top X-ray microtomographic system has been developed, the first of this kind in the world. This system has been improved and commercialised through the Spin-off company Skyscan. The first commercial instrument has been installed and actvely used in the department MTM of the University of Leuven.

D Van Dyck has published more than 250 papers in international journals , he has written several bookchapters on electron microscopy including two in scientific encyclopedia and a monograph on this subject (Springer to be published)

He is co-editor of the "Handbook of Microscopy" and of 6 internationale journals and referee of numerous scientific projects . he has 4 international patents

Hij is cofounder of the AIC (Antwerps Innovatiecentrum) and of four spin-off companies.

He was president of the Belgian society and is member of the "International Commission on Electron Diffraction".

Recently D van Dyck was awarded the Francqui chair 2000-2001 by the University of Leuven for his scientific work.in electron microscopy and X-ray microtomography.