The symposium is open to all registered participants and consists of a one-day programme and a poster session.

Advanced sensing techniques require graphene with high quality and well-controlled surface chemistry.

The elementary excitations of magnets are called spin waves, and their corresponding quasi-particles are known as magnons. The rapidly growing field of Magnonics aims at using them as information carriers in a new generation of electronic devices, (almost) free of electric currents.

Theorists have recently made substantial progress in simulating reactive molecule-metal surface scattering but still face major challenges. The grand challenge is to develop an approach that enables accurate predictive calculations of reactions involving electronically excited states with potential…

Ariane Briegel has been appointed Professor in the fìeld of Ultrastructural Biology within the Faculty of Science at the Institute of Biology from the 1st of December 2015. Her expertise is in using electron cryotomography to study how microbes sense and respond to their environment.

Chemical reactions go hand-in-hand with an energy exchange with the environment in which they take place. Surfaces offer a variety of energy dissipation channels, constituted by the nuclear and electronic degrees of freedom of the atoms at the interface. Aiming at an improved future harvesting of energy,…

Artificial photosynthesis aims to produce fuels from solar energy using chemical processes. In semi-artificial photosynthesis, a hybrid approach is taken using both chemical and biotechnology components. We are developing hybrid systems, coupling light-harvesting nanoparticles to redox-enzymes (oxidoreductases)…

Research report January 2020. Supported by the lectorate ‘Music, Education and Society’, research group ‘Making in Music’, Royal Conservatoire The Hague

This perspective addresses four challenges facing theorists whose aim is to make quantitatively accurate predictions for reactions of molecules on metal surfaces, and suggests ways of meeting these challenges, focusing on dissociative chemisorption reactions of H2, N2, and CH4.

The Kroese-Duijsters Symposia aim to provide researchers from different fields and different career stages to meet in an informal setting, to stimulate discussions and to start new collaborations. The Kroese-Duijsters Symposia started in 2022 and we are pleased to invite you to the 4th Kroese-Duijsters…

Promotor: Prof.dr. T.J. Aartsma, Co-promotor: R.N. Frese

As a virtually inexhaustible source, solar energy plays a major role in future global energy scenarios.

An objective of this research was to achieve direct, well-defined and non-rate-limiting electron transfer between respiratory enzymes and the electrode surface by means of 'Q-wires'.

This thesis covers various applications of topology in condensed matter physics and quantum information.

Triplet superconductivity refers to a condensate of equal-spin Cooper pairs (pairs of electrons with equal spin).

In this dissertation, we work towards an experiment in which we aim to bring a micrometer sized magnet at the tip of a soft cantilever into a superposition.

Research in the Lemay Lab concentrates on Iontronics: the physics of mixed electronic-ionic charge transport.

The main research theme in the group of Dennis Hetterscheid is to understand and mimic bioinorganic multi-electron processes that are relevant to our future energy infrastructure. Reduction of protons generates hydrogen that can be used as a chemical fuel. Alternatively to gaseous hydrogen, the reduction…

Freezing bacteria super fast to gain a true-to-nature image of the internal and external structure. Ariane Briegel Professor of Ultrastructural Biology came to Leiden specially to carry out this research. Leiden University is one of the few institutes in the world to have the necessary equipment. Inaugural…

Electrons in graphene behave like light particles; they have no mass and can penetrate everything: very useful if you dream about nano-electronics. But you do have to channel them. Carlo Beenakker will be researching how. He has been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant of 1.5 million euro to carry out this…

Inverse problems are problems where we want to estimate the values of certain parameters of a system given observations of the system. Such problems occur in several areas of science and engineering. Inverse problems are often ill-posed, which means that the observations of the system do not uniquely…

Promotor: K.E. Schalm, Co-promotor: S.S. Lee

docARTES is a doctoral programme for performers and composers. It offers a unique environment for critical reflection on musical practice.

Three projects with Leiden researchers are to receive a subsidy from NWO for the construction or renovation of large-scale research facilities. They will be working on electron microscopy, an X-omics initiative and an X-ray telescope. The projects are part of the National Roadmap for Large-Scale Scientific…

We review the state-of-the-art in the theory of dissociative chemisorption (DC) of small gas phase molecules on metal surfaces, which is important to modeling heterogeneous catalysis for practical reasons, and for achieving an understanding of the wealth of experimental information that exists for this…

Promotor: H.J.M. de Groot

Can process-oriented dynamic testing be applied to everyday educational practice?

Human and animal cells are very complex: very different chemical processes are going on at the same time, but they are separated from each other because the cells are divided in compartments. These compartments may also have a profound effect on the potential efficacy of therapeutics, because the drug…

The Joan van der Waals colloquium is an ongoing bi-weekly lecture series.

We find ourselves in an era of transition, not just towards a more computing- and data-driven society but also away from unsustainable fossil fuels as an energy source.

Truth is stranger than fiction. In 1997 Juan Maldaceña discovered a remarkable dictionary that translates equation for equation the physics of black holes in string theory into the more conventional physics of quantum mechanics of interacting particles. The remarkable possibility exists that…

Protein–protein complexes are formed via transient states called encounter complexes that greatly influence the formation of the stereospecific complex.

Promotor: Prof.dr. M. Ubbink

On this page you can find the current vacancies at the Van der Molen research group.

List of Support Departments at LION and the Faculty of Science

Geometric phases lead to a nontrivial interference result when an electron's different quantum mechanical paths choices encircle a magnetic coil in an Aharonov-Bohm experiment.

Promotor: R. Gill, Co-promotor: P. Massart

Our world is shrinking, or at least our electronic devices are. From PCs to mobile phones: everything is smaller and thinner. The smaller the chip, the better it can conduct electricity and pass on information.

In this dissertation, the synthesis and characterization of a series of iron complexes based on different ligand platforms are described.

Α-synuclein, a protein associated with Parkinson’s disease, proves to bind with membranes in a surprisingly efficient way. It confirms scientists’ suspicion of the protein’s leading role in the transmission of neurotransmitters between nerve cells in the brain. Publication in PLoS ONE.

Inspired by natural photosynthesis, perovskite-based photoelectrochemical (PEC) systems are being developed for artificial photosynthesis, aiming to enhance solar-to-hydrogen conversion for green energy.

Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is an important bulk chemical that is used in various industrial processes. More than 95% of the H2O2 used in industry is made via the anthraquinone process during which a large amount of energy is going to waste.

Promotores: Prof.dr. H.J.M. de Groot, Prof.dr. J. Matysik (Universitaet Leipzig)

Cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) is a powerful technique used to visualize the inside of cells and to study specific protein complexes. Within this thesis, I describe the use of various cryo-EM techniques to gain insight into the structural changes of the human pathogen, Vibrio cholerae, as it…

Ever since the FDA approved the drug bedaquiline, which interferes with the bioenergetics of Mycobacterium tuberculosis by inhibiting the activity the F0F1-ATP synthase, respiratory-chain enzymes have been an active target space for the discovery of new antibiotics. To aid in this pursuit, we aim to…

Master projects are available in

Can bacteria be engineered to convert methanol into valuable chemicals with high efficiency?