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

The use of N fertilizers has increased worldwide in the past century. While this increased input of N has increased food productivity, it has also contributed to decreases in biodiversity, soil quality and environmental health, including increases in greenhouse gas emissions.

The research aim of the Catalysis and Surface Chemistry group headed by Prof. Marc Koper is to probe and understand chemical reactions on well-defined, mostly single crystalline, surfaces at the molecular level.

The list of substances prohibited by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is huge. PhD candidate Jules Heuberger looked at many of these, as well as at the methods used to detect them. He concluded that for very few of these substances is there is evidence that they actually do enhance performance. PhD…

Nitrogen deposition does not only affect plant biodiversity, but also strongly affects the composition of the remainder of the food web, through the changes in plant composition. In an unprecedented analysis of population changes of butterfly and moth species, an international research team including…

Vinasse is a major by-product generated by the sugarcane biofuel industry. It is a source of microbes, nutrients and organic matter and often it is recycled as fertilizer.

Materials with strongly correlated electrons show some of the most mysterious and exotic phases of quantum matter, such as unconventional superconductivity, quantum criticality and strange metal phase.

Promotor: Prof.dr. D. Bouwmeester, Co-Promotor: M.J.A. de Dood

Promotor: Prof.dr. H.V.J. Linnartz, Co-Promotores: S. Ioppolo, H.M. Cuppen

Even a small quantum computer should be able to simulate exactly the properties and behaviour of new molecules. This would take chemistry to an entirely new level. Better solar panels, more powerful batteries, saving lots of energy in the chemical industry: the applications have the potential to transform…

The Cryogenics Department has a liquid helium production unit and an automatic liquid nitrogen filling plant.

Planets are formed in disks of gas and dust around young stars.

PhD Defence

Materials balances have been used in the recent past for the analysis of substance oriented environmental problems and the formulation of measures for environmental policy. In this study an integrated tool, based on the materials balance principle, has been developed for the analysis of both environmental…

We are a dynamic research group at the Leiden Institute of Physics. Our aim is to explore and understand quantum materials, including strange metals, high-temperature superconductors, and quantum critical electron matter.

Promotor: J.G.E.M.Fraaije, Co-promotor: A. Kros

University students, Leiden University staff members and externals can join the USC with an all-inclusive membership with varying tariffs for each group.

Following the Beirut explosion, BBC's podcast series The Foodchain explores the chemical that caused the blast: ammonium nitrate. A compound that is widely used to produce fertilizer. Professor of Environmental sustaibability Jan Willem Erisman tells about the effects of nitrogen on the environment.

List of Support Departments at LION and the Faculty of Science

Can we enhance the capacity of host immune cells to kill mycobacteria via production of reactive nitrogen species?

Metal-based prodrugs based on ruthenium(II) polypyridyl complexes have proven to be very suitable for application in both photodynamic therapy (PDT) and photo-activated chemotherapy (PACT).

PhD Defence

Associate professor at the Natural Products Laboratory, Institute of Biology, Leiden University - the Netherlands

Marc Koper’s research focuses on electrocatalysis and electrochemical surface science for sustainable energy and chemistry. Reactions of interest are the redox reactions of the oxygen/hydrogen cycle (water oxidation, hydrogen evolution), the carbon cycle (reduction of carbon dioxide, oxidation of small…

Our group explores the larger domain of quantum measurement. In particular we investigate two themes that are closely connected: The detection of specially prepared quantum states of light and understanding and characterizing quantum photon detectors.

Research groups in the Quantum Matter & Optics programme investigate electronic properties of matter and light-matter interactions with emphasis on quantum information.

Hot astrophysical plasma is ubiquitous in the Universe, from comets in our Solar system to the largest scale structures -- the cosmic web filaments. These hot plasmas, with the temperature of a few millions of degrees, are often observed in the X-ray wavelength range.

Catalysis is of extreme relevance in the production of everyday materials and plays a central role in many aspects of our life.

Promotors: Prof.dr. G.R. de Snoo, Prof.dr. G.A. Persoon, Prof.dr.ir. H.H. de Iongh

The Leiden Institute of Physics has been awarded three out of twelve available grants from the FOM Projectruimte. Principal Investigators Milan Allan, Stefan Semrau and Carlo Beenakker all receive around 400,000 euro for their research.

How can we best deal with the current problems caused by the human impact on the nitrogen cycle? How do we make the transition to a sustainable society? As of 1 September, nitrogen expert Jan Willem Erisman will be working on these questions at Leiden University: he will exchange the Louis Bolk Institute…

For the first time, physicists have visualized the ‘melting’ of electrons inside a special class of insulators. It allows electrons to move freely and turns the insulator into a metal and possibly later into a superconductor. Publication in Nature Physics.

Day-to-day activities are important in the development of social identities, the establishment of social standing, and the communal understanding of societal rules. This perspective is broadly referred to as practice theory and relates to the power of an overarching social structure and the individual…

Research at the Catalysis and Surface Chemistry group is comprised of the following research themes:

Nearly six hundred new first-year students visited their new faculty on 15 Augustus during the EL CID introduction week. They were welcomed at the Faculty of Science with a transmitter hunt, photo shoots, warm words and lots of liquid nitrogen.

With defending his thesis ‘Applications of topology to Weyl semimetals and quantum computing’, the Leiden theoretical physicist Tom O'Brien has gained the rare 'cum laude' qualification. The freshly minted PhD has started a five year research programme on quantum algorithms for quantum chemistry, funded…

Seagoing vessels may emit fewer and fewer harmful substances, but how do you measure whether they comply with the standards? The Dutch Environment and Transport Inspectorate (ILT) and the universities of Leiden and Wageningen are starting a joint study to detect the emission of sulfur and nitrogen dioxide…

Radiation can be used to determine the isotope ratio of a skeleton. This provides information about where our ancestors lived and what they consumed. Dr Andrea Waters has developed a revolutionary method that can trace patterns of consumption from tens of thousands of years ago.

What are the functions of autophagy in the filamentous fungus Aspergillus niger?

This project, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Hans van der Plicht, comprises several studies aimed at the use of isotopes occurring naturally in organic material as tracers for both the climate change and its cultural impact at about 6200 BC. The research will be carried out by the co-applicant at…

Working on superconductivity, finding an exoplanet or learning how to program with Python. More than one hundred girls visited Leiden University on Thursday 13 February during the Girls in Science Day.

The first Leiden Science Family Day on Saturday 6 October was a great success. During the ‘Weekend of Science’ more than 700 visitors, including 350 children, visited the Faculty of Science. With a program full of experiments, lectures, guided tours and demonstrations, visitors were given a glimpse…

Measurements on a superconducting material show an abrupt transition between a normal metal and a 'strange' metal. The really strange thing, however, is that this abruptness disappears when the temperature falls. 'We don't have any theoretical machinery for this', says theoretical physicist Jan Zaanen,…

A consortium of international researchers comes with a unique solution to the energy problem. By mimicking photosynthesis, they aim to produce sustainable fuels out of sunlight, water, and CO2. Their secret? ‘Soap bubbles’, says Leiden chemist Sylvestre Bonnet, who is part of the consortium.

The research article ‘The life history of an enslaved African’ is one of the top 20 read Archaeometry articles in the period of January 2017 to December 2018.

Higher temperatures are resulting in changes to vegetation and soil in mountain areas throughout the world. An international research team including Leiden ecologist Ellen Cieraad published an article on 25 January in Nature on the disruption to the ecosystem.

The ‘Stans Prize 2017' (for the best thesis, report or article produced by a CML student) has been awarded to Davide De Mauro. Other CML prizes were awarded to Jeroen Guinee, Reinout Heijungs, Martina Vijver, Willie Peijnenburg en Kevin Groen

The aim of the research project is to get insight in the biostratigraphical age and the palaeoecological setting of the Schöningen sites and hominin behavior and subsistence during the late Lower Palaeolithic.