In her research, Wiebke studies how light interacts with nanomaterials and how it can change their structure down to the level of individual atoms. She combines optical spectroscopy and electron microscopy on the very same nanoparticles, which lets her link a material’s atomic structure directly to its optical and functional properties.
She also investigates how light can actively reshape materials, for example by creating defects or strain in metal nanoparticles. These insights matter for materials used in sustainable energy conversion, such as light-driven catalysis. In those materials, the atomic structure keeps changing while the material is in use.
About the chair
As professor, Wiebke will strengthen the collaboration between AMOLF and the VU. At AMOLF, she initiated the national SHINE consortium, which led to the establishment of a transmission electron microscope facility that is unique in the world. The facility allows researchers to follow materials at the atomic scale in real time while they are illuminated with light. Wiebke will connect this capability with the VU’s expertise in materials synthesis, optical spectroscopy and photocatalysis in the Photoconversion Materials section. Together, the researchers aim to reveal how materials for solar energy conversion and light-driven chemistry work during operation. They will use that knowledge to design materials that are more efficient and more stable.
Combining roles at AMOLF and VU
Besides continuing as head of the Hybrid Nanosystems group at AMOLF, Wiebke will teach in the Physics and Astronomy master’s program, a joint degree with the University of Amsterdam. She will contribute to the Advanced Matter and Energy Physics track and supervise bachelor’s, master’s and PhD students. Together with the Amsterdam Imaging Hub, which she co-founded, she will also help develop education in advanced imaging techniques.
About Wiebke Albrecht
Wiebke received her PhD from Utrecht University in 2017. She then moved to the University of Antwerp (Belgium) with a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship. There she specialized in electron microscopy and electron tomography, and during a secondment at Leiden University she deepened her expertise in single-particle optical spectroscopy.
In 2021, she came to AMOLF, an institute of the Dutch Research Council (NWO), as group leader of Hybrid Nanosystems. That same year she received the Minerva Prize from the Netherlands’ Physical Society (NNV) and the Dutch Physics Council.
Wiebke is a board member of the Netherlands Electron Microscopy Infrastructure (NEMI) and the Dutch Microscopy Society (NVvM).
Learn more
- About the SHINE consortium
- About the transmission electron microscope facility (TEM)
- About AMOLF’s Hybrid Nanosystems research group
