News & updates
Latest developments from our institute
Stay informed about new research results, awards, events, and collaborations across our scientific community.
Computing with rubber
Without electronics carrying out computational tasks our daily lives would look very different. Devices such as elevators, vending machines, turnstiles, washing machines and even traffic lights use a simple form of electronic computing to switch from state to state. But, what if power supply is not available to operate these devices? A research team led by Martin van Hecke from Leiden University and AMOLF has now demonstrated how smart rubber structures can carry out such computational tasks. “We now know how to design simple materials so they can process information.” The study was published in the journal PNAS on May 20th.
AMOLF researcher Marc Serra Garcia gets NWO Grant for his study on Nano-Computers and Energy Efficiency
AMOLF group leader Marc Serra Garcia has been awarded a grant of 370.000 euro from NWO (Dutch Research Council) in the Open Competition Domain Science. The grant will fund his project entitled “Autonomous nanomechanical computers near the limits of thermodynamics.” This project aims to delve into the fundamental minimum amount of energy required by computers, using fully self-contained ‘nano-computers’ constructed from nanomechanical elements.
OrganoidNL 2024: Latest advances in organoid research
On April 12th, the second edition of the OrganoidNL Conference was held at AMOLF. This one-day event united over 160 researchers from the Netherlands and neighboring countries, all passionate about organoid technology and biology.
Light stands still in a deformed crystal
AMOLF researchers, in collaboration with Delft University of Technology, succeeded to bring light waves to a halt by deforming the two-dimensional photonic crystal that contains them. The researchers showed that even a subtle deformation can have a substantial effect on photons in the crystal. This resembles the effect that a magnetic field has on electrons. “This principle offers a new approach to slow down light fields and thereby enhance their strength. Realizing this on a chip is particularly important for many applications”, says AMOLF-group leader Ewold Verhagen. The researchers publish their findings in the scientific journal Nature Photonics on April 23rd (online). Simultaneously, a research team from Pennsylvania State University publishes an article in this journal about how they demonstrated – independently from the Dutch team – an identical effect.
Gravitation proposal ANION honored
The consortium Advanced Nano electrochemistry Institute Of the Netherlands (ANION) receives a Graviation subsidy of 23,6 million euro for research on the fundamental properties of electro chemical processes. The consortium is being led by Leiden University. AMOLF is one of the main participants.
New topological metamaterial amplifies sound waves exponentially
Researchers at AMOLF, in collaboration with partners from Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, have realized a new type of metamaterial through which sound waves flow in an unprecedented fashion. It provides a novel form of amplification of mechanical vibrations, which has the potential to improve sensor technology and information processing devices. This metamaterial is the first instance of a so-called ‘bosonic Kitaev chain’, which gets its special properties from its nature as a topological material. It was realized by making nanomechanical resonators interact with laser light through radiation pressure forces. The discovery, which is published on March 27 in the renowned scientific journal Nature, was achieved in an international collaboration between AMOLF, the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, the University of Basel, ETH Zurich, and the University of Vienna.
Light prefers the extremes
From monitoring pregnancies to distance detection in cars, light sensors are a workhorse of modern technology. But do we really understand the data they give us? In a surprising find, three AMOLF researchers show evidence of a tendency to detect extreme values more often than average ones, caused by the way our sensors work. This so-called arcsine behavior causes lows and highs to occur much more often than the average in between. The finding may have a great impact on sensing technology, write Vashist Ramesh, Kevin Peters and Said Rodriguez in the prominent scientific journal Physical Review Letters.
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.