News
Group leader Bruno Ehrler has been named professor by special appointment for New Hybrid Material Systems for Solar-cell Applications at the University of Groningen. Ehrler will continue working at AMOLF leading the research group Hybrid Solar Cells.
On September 11th, group leader Kristina Ganzinger has been awarded this year’s Pieter Langerhuizen Lambertuszoon Fonds of the Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen (KHMW).
AMOLF group leaders Bruno Ehrler and Bas Overvelde have both received a Starting Grant of 1.5 million Euros from the European Research Council (ERC). The ERC uses this grant to support talented early-career scientists who have already produced excellent research, and show potential to be a research leader.
AMOLF researchers present a theory that describes the friction between biological filaments that are crosslinked by proteins. Surprisingly, their theory predicts that the friction force scales highly non-linearly with the number of crosslinkers. The authors believe that cells use this scaling, not only to stabilize cellular structures but also to control their size. The new findings are important for our understanding of the dynamics of cellular structures such as the mitotic spindle, which pulls chromosomes apart during cell division.
A novel and highly promising material for solar cells, halide perovskites, is more stable and consequently more efficient if just one ion is substituted. Researchers from AMOLF revealed in an unexpected manner why this is the case: pressure plays an important role. They published their findings on July 15th in Cell Reports Physical Science.
On Friday, June 19th Federica Burla defended her PhD thesis Tailoring Extracellular Matrix Mechanics online at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam.
Burla obtained the cum laude degree for her doctorate research. This degree is reserved for the top 5% of the students. Gijsje Koenderink was the promotor. Until recently, Burla was a PhD student in the AMOLF research group of Gijsje Koenderink who left AMOLF to become full professor at TU Delft.
Evolution seems to be an unpredictable process. However, predicting the constraints of evolution is possible. Researchers from AMOLF and the French ESPCI have demonstrated this using their mathematical method, followed by experiments on bacteria. On June 24, they publish their results in the journal Cell Systems.
A simple drop of olive oil in a system of photons bouncing between two mirrors, has revealed universal aspects of phase transitions in physics. Researchers at AMOLF used an oil-filled optical cavity in which light undergoes phase transitions similar to those in boiling water. The system they studied has memory because the oil causes photons to interact with themselves. By varying the distance between the two mirrors and measuring the transmission of light through the cavity, they discovered a universal law describing phase transitions in systems with memory. These results are published on April 15th in Physical Review Letters.
Former PhD student Hugo Doeleman has received a Rubicon grant from NWO to carry out his research proposal at ETH Zurich. At AMOLF Doeleman was a group member of the Resonant Nanophotonics group led by Femius Koenderink. His doctoral research was done in close collaboration with Ewold Verhagen (AMOLF) and Robert Spreeuw (UvA). Doeleman left AMOLF after defending his thesis ‘Hybrid Resonators for Light Trapping and Emission Control’, for which he obtained a cum laude degree.
As of 1 January, Bela Mulder (Theory of Biomolecular Matter) has been appointed Professor by Special Appointment in Theoretical Biophysics at Utrecht University.
Today the European Research Council (ERC) announced that 185 scientists receive an Advanced Grant of 2.5 million euros. One of them is AMOLF group leader Pieter Rein ten Wolde. He will use the grant to determine how accurately single-celled organisms can predict changes in their environment.
Researchers of AMOLF and TU Delft have seen light propagate in a special material without it suffering from reflections. The material, a photonic crystal, consists of two parts that each have a slightly different pattern of perforations. Light can propagate along the boundary between these two parts in a special way: it is ‘topologically protected’ and, therefore, does not bounce back at imperfections. Even when the boundary forms a sharp corner, the light follows it without a problem. “For the first time, we have seen these fascinating light waves move at the technologically relevant scale of nanophotonics,” says Ewold Verhagen, group leader at AMOLF. The results are published on March 6th in the scientific journal Science Advances.