Physicists understand little about quantum matter, which is a building block of future quantum computers. Theorists have now discovered that black holes with ‘dreadlocks’ harbor a similarly exotic order pattern, which makes calculations on quantum matter easier. Publication in Physical Review Letter…

Astronomer Koen Kuijken and physicist Tjerk Oosterkamp have each been awarded a major subsidy by NWO. The funding will allow them to construct new research facilities.

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.

Majorana meets a mermaid

This thesis is a collection of experimental attempts to enhance photoluminescence of fluorescent molecules and quantum dots with single gold nanorods (GNRs) and relevant applications.

How can computers help design optimal buildings? PhD student Koen van der Blom makes algorithms that take into account all kinds of different architectural requirements, in order to reach the best compromise. And that is quite difficult: 'Algorithms do not automatically understand that a building that…

Leiden has a strong tradition in theoretical physics, thoroughly linked with experimental disciplines.

Every day we make use of devices, services and apps which contain algorithms that could be discriminating. These range from Facebook to self-driving cars, from the Tax Authorities to a rotating door.

Where should you plant ten trees so that as many city-dwellers as possible can enjoy them? If a smart algorithm knows how people move through the city and where there are already trees, it can calculate the optimal solution. Data scientist Mitra Baratchi makes this possible. Her students are now using…

Beenakker

Quantum Delta NL, a research programme in which Leiden University participates, has been awarded 615 million euros from the National Growth Fund to help develop the Netherlands into a top player in quantum technology. This has been announced at the presentation of the honoured proposals in The Hague…

Leiden University organizes a course on quantum mechanics for high school Physics teachers. As the curriculum gains a new quantum component, the university enables teachers to give the best possible guidance to their students.

General contact information

The Leiden team

This year's Nobel Prize in Physics goes to quantum physics research. The prize will be awarded on December 10 in Stockholm. Physicist Bas Hensen explains why this is important and how his research in Leiden relates to it.

The most famous cat in science is Schrödinger's cat, the quantum mechanical mammal, which can exist in a superposition, a state that is alive as well as dead. The moment you look at it, one of both options is chosen. Leiden University physicists simulated an experiment to catch this mysterious moment…

The Benelux Algorithm Programming Contest 2010 (one of the qualifying rounds of the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest) will take place on Saturday 23 October in Plexus, Leiden. This programming contest is organizedby De Leidsche Flesch (study association of ComputerScience/Mathematics/Physics/Astronomy…

In this thesis, classes of strongly interacting quantum field theories, have been studied.

The government is investing 646 million euros and has set aside a further 3.5 billion to drive economic growth in the Netherlands. Much of the National Growth Fund will be used for scientific innovations. Leiden University is involved in three of the projects.

American physicist and quantum computing pioneer Seth Lloyd is the 65th Lorentz professor. He will deliver the Ehrenfest lecture on 5 June, and several more lectures on quantum computing on 11, 18 and 25 June.

Rare-earth materials are prime candidates for storing quantum information, because the undesirable interaction with their environment is extremely weak. Consequently however, this lack of interaction implies a very small response to light, making it hard to read and write data. Leiden physicists have…

The worldwide race to the quantum computer is in full swing. This computer can bring about a breakthrough in discovering medicines and new materials. Leiden researchers, together with the TU Delft, are taking part in the race. There is now a dossier online about their work.

In donut-shaped buildings, particle accelerators take super-detailed X-ray images. Yet those images are not good enough to learn how to drive on hydrogen for example. Mathematics PhD student Allard Hendriksen has developed an algorithm that improves the images without having to learn from data from…

In what way can the chemical properties of cobalt porphyrines be adjusted to optimize their selectivity and activity when using them for the electrochemical conversion of CO2 to methane and methanol?

Koen Bastiaans and his colleagues discovered a new quantum liquid unlike anything ever seen. They did it by using a technique that can be compared to listening to the sound of raindrops falling on a roof. Publication in Science 29 October.

This thesis involves three topics: benchmarking discrete optimization algorithms, empirical analyses of evolutionary computation, and automatic algorithm configuration.

Promotores: Prof.dr. D. Bouwmeester, Prof.dr. A. Fiore (TU Eindhoven)

Are Weyl particles the ideal conductors? Do cells without a cell wall play a role in chronic Tuberculosis infections? Carlo Beenakker and Dennis Claessen want to answer these questions. They both received a KLEIN grant from the NWO. With these grants, NWO wants to stimulate innovative, fundamental r…

Using biologically inspired algorithms on 'edge devices', such as cameras and mobile phones, is what Svetlana Minakova's PhD research was all about. She conducted research on Convolutional Neural Networks(CNN). Making these algorithms work in different situations is a complicated task. 'Most design…

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…

Promotor: H.W. Lenstra

PhD defence

In cryptography, the sky is the limit according to the new professor Mathematical Cryptology Léo Ducas. He already designed several cryptosystems as part of his research at the Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI), some of which might soon be adopted as new international standards. Since December,…

Lecture

Every day we make use of devices, services and apps which contain algorithms that could be discriminating. These range from Facebook to self-driving cars, from the Tax Authorities to a rotating door.

The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics states that a measurement collapses a wavefunction onto an eigenstate of the corresponding measurement operator.

HEPGAME is a research project that combines the world’s fastest computer algebra system for High Energy Physics equations, FORM, with insights from artificial intelligence. The name combines High Energy Physics and Games.

Partly thanks to Roy de Winter, ship design and engineering company C-Job Naval Architects now develops optimal ships in a short time. The master's student Computer Science from Leiden developed the CEGO algorithm, which eliminates the classic design cycle and makes people in the maritime optimization…

On Tuesday December 19, Museum Boerhaave, the Lorentz Center and eLaw organize a public lecture on ‘Fairness and Accountability of Sociotechnical Algorithmic Systems’.

As partner within the EuDEco-poject, the Centre for Law and Digital Technologies (eLaw) organized a panel titled “Filling accountability holes in algorithmic networks” as part of the 11th annual conference on Computers, Privacy and Data Protection (CPDP), January 24-26 2018 in Brussels.

On September 15th a new series of lectures will start, the Joint Lectures on Evolutionary Algorithms (JoLEA). This series of events is aimed at disseminating the latest, top-quality research on EAs. The lectures will feature world-renowned speakers, local researchers, and PhD students.

In January 2021, eLaw joined the Computers Privacy and Data Protection (CPDP) Conference that is about privacy and data protection. The group on Law and Digital Technologies at Leiden University put together a panel that combined perspectives on Art, Society, & Technology.

Promotor: Prof.dr. E. R. Eliel, Co-Promotor: M.J.A. de Dood

In unconventional high temperature superconductors, supercurrent vortices are known to spoil the Landau levels. In this thesis the emergence of Landau levels is studied in different types of superconductors: Weyl superconductors, and the Fu-Kane heterostructure.