News & updates
Latest developments from our institute
Stay informed about new research results, awards, events, and collaborations across our scientific community.
AMOLF opens upgraded NanoLab and says farewell to Hans Zeijlemaker
On November 21, researchers, staff, and guests gathered at AMOLF to celebrate two significant milestones: the opening of the newly upgraded NanoLab cleanroom and the farewell of a beloved colleague, Hans Zeijlemaker, after an impressive 44-year career at the institute.
AMOLF celebrates 75 years of magical times with network members
On November 12, AMOLF celebrated its 75th anniversary with its network partners at the iconic Felix Meritis in Amsterdam. The celebration drew together a diverse crowd of research collaborators, industry partners, policymakers, AMOLF staff and other esteemed relations. This gathering provided an opportunity to reflect on the institute’s achievements, and exchange ideas about its evolving role in the future of science and technology.
SEP Committee report
Every six years the NWO institutes are evaluated by an external international committee according to the so-called Strategy Evaluation Protocol (SEP). In December 2023, an international committee chaired by Professor Hans Hilgenkamp (University of Twente) visited AMOLF. The final evaluation report has recently been shared with NWO and AMOLF. The committee is very impressed by the excellent research at AMOLF and the collaborative and inclusive work environment.
AMOLF welcomes new group leader Menachem Stern
On August 1st Menachem (Nachi) Stern will start as tenure track group leader at AMOLF. He will lead the Learning Machines group, which will be shared between the autonomous matter and information in matter research themes at AMOLF. Stern’s research efforts will focus on the physics of learning in natural and synthetic systems. Such learning machines can adopt desirable properties and functions given real world examples and environments. Leveraging the advances of statistical learning theory in physical machines, physical learning is a promising bridge between computational machine learning and biology, and enables the development of new classes of bio-inspired smart metamaterials that adapt in-situ to users’ needs.
AMOLF wins NNV Diversity Award 2022
At the annual NWO Physics conference in Veldhoven, AMOLF has been awarded with the NNV Diversity Award. The NNV Diversity prize is awarded every two years by the Netherlands Physical Society to the physics institute that demonstrates the most successful implementation of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI). AMOLF is proud to receive this award and sees the award as an encouragement to continue implementing its inclusion and diversity plans.
SolarNL: major consortium proposes large scale production of solar panels in the Netherlands
SolarNL is a national research, innovation and industrial investment program to bring back and stimulate photovoltaics manufacturing to the Netherlands/Europe. It has been submitted as a proposal for the National Economic Growth Fund (Nationaal Groeifonds) in February 2023. The consortium consists of a large group of public and private parties, one of which is AMOLF that contributes its expertise in fundamental photovoltaics research.
Marc Serra starts Hyper Smart Matter group
On October 1st Marc Serra will start as tenure track group leader at AMOLF. His Hyper Smart Matter group will be embedded in the Designer Matter research theme at AMOLF. Serra intends to design and build complex materials that manipulate sound waves to process information. These materials will enable a wide variety of new devices, from computers that consume very low power to soft robots that accomplish complex tasks autonomously. Serra aims to simultaneously solve practical problems and understand how physical principles such as the laws of thermodynamics fundamentally limit the energy efficiency of computers.
AMOLF welcomes Wiebke Albrecht
On May 1st, Wiebke Albrecht will start at AMOLF as tenure track group leader. Her research group Hybrid Nanosystems will be embedded in the Designer Matter research theme at AMOLF. With her group, Albrecht will investigate the interaction between different components in complex hybrid nanosystems, such as metal-semiconductor nanostructures. By combining advanced electron microscopy and single particle optical spectroscopy on the same nanoparticle, she will be able to unravel the interplay of morphology and underlying charge and energy transfer processes. The ultimate goal is to develop new concepts of hybrid architectures, responsive to external stimuli, with properties specifically tailored for applications in solar energy harvesting and quantum information processing.