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.

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.

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…

Watching and analysing hundreds of TEDx talks, that too can be research. That becomes clear from the work of PhD student Aletta Meinsma, who is studying potential problems in popular communication about quantum technologies. She explains how she approaches this and why it is so important.

Telling sensationalised stories, exaggerating benefits and understating the risks: creating ‘hype’ about something doesn't sound like something a responsible scientist would indulge in. Or could we also use hype in a ‘good way'? What could we achieve by opening up quantum futures for wider discussions,…

Quantum technology, statistics and a survey with memes: definitely not your everyday research. Julia Cramer (Leiden Institute of Physics) and Sanne Willems (Institute of Psychology) investigate how people perceive quantum.

A suitcase covered with stickers from various universities, containing a quantum light source. Since April 2024, this suitcase has been visiting scientists in Europe researching single photons: the smallest possible quantity of light. The suitcase, also called ‘Q-torch’, travels from lab to lab like…

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…

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

The Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS) is a proud member of the NExt ApplicationS of Quantum Computing (NEASQC) consortium, which recently received an ERC H2020 grant to stimulate the state-of-the-art in industrial quantum computing. LIACS contributes research and development of new…

Hoe kan de City Deal Kennis Maken bijdragen aan het formuleren van maatschappelijk relevant onderzoek dat de stad in al haar diversiteit centraal stelt? In de stad Leiden zijn burgers momenteel maar in beperkte mate betrokken bij het bepalen van de agenda van de lokale City Deal Kennis Maken. Dit onderzoeksproject…

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.

With a call for dialogue and collaboration, vice dean Bart de Smit kicked off the new academic year for the Faculty of Science on Tuesday 3 September. Theoretical physicist Carlo Beenakker outlined the possibilities of quantum as a disruptive technology.

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.

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?

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…

Materials with strongly correlated electrons show some of the most mysterious and exotic phases of quantum matter, such as unconventional superconductivity, quantum criticality and strange metal phase.

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

‘Quantum technology is going to change the world, but most people don’t feel connected to it. I want to change that,’ says Julia Cramer, assistant professor at Leiden University. Known for her passion for science communication, Cramer actively seeks opportunities to share the wonders of quantum technology…

Designing innovative algorithms, thinking outside the box, and brainstorming over coffee with his colleagues — this is what physicist Stefano Polla enjoys most. His success shines through in his nomination for the C.J. Kok Jury Award 2024 for PhD thesis of the Year.

Vedran Dunjko (LIACS and applied Quantum algorithms (aQa) Leiden) and Tomoyuki Morimae (Kyoto University) are to collaborate with Qu&Co. Qu&Co is a leading European developer of quantum software.

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

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.

A suitcase as a messenger of quantum science. That is the idea behind QuanTour, a project connecting researchers from 12 European universities. In December, the suitcase landed in Leiden. A month later, it is time to pass the baton to Copenhagen. But what happened to it in Leiden?

Besides physics, the sleep of PhD students also benefits from Vitaly Fedoseev's PhD research. He will receive his doctorate on July 7 for his work on optomechanics within quantum mechanics. And also on a setup that eliminated the need for PhD students to push a button every hour for 72 hours.

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

This thesis studies the geometry of representation varieties and character stacks. These are spaces parametrizing the representations of a finitely generated group, typically the fundamental group of a compact manifold, into an algebraic group G.

In some condensed matter systems, such as the surface of a 3D topological insulator, the electrons are effectively massless and we must necessarily use the massless Dirac equation to describe them.

Lecture

Conference

Atoms and molecules are the basic units of matter. If we keep dividing a bar of gold or a glass of water into smaller parts, at the end we are left with a single gold atom or a water molecule.

Quantum Rules lab van Leiden Universiteit biedt proefjes en experimenten voor middelbare scholieren om te leren over kwantum natuurkunde. Henk Buisman vertelt over het 5 jarige jubileum.

Prof. Dr. Richard Gill has recently joined as a member of the Foundational Questions Institute (FQXi). FQXi is an international association of scientists who explore the foundations of physics and cosmology.

In the spirit of 'unity in diversity', our objective is to promote insight into and appreciation for the wonder that the same physical laws and mathematical concepts apply to the whole of nature, from the largest to the smallest energy and length scales. We strive for the application of abstract theoretical…

Jianfeng Ge and Milan Allen of Leiden University look for majorana quasiparticles using shot noise measurements

Using 2D materials, physics student Romme van der Kemp developed a nanochip that is extremely small ánd scalable. This is needed to make all kinds of technologies better, faster and smaller. He has been nominated for the FWN Young Talent Award 2023 for his research.

Tjerk Oosterkamp of the Leiden Institute of Physics managed to do the first-ever measurement of gravity on a tiny particle - just 0.43 milligrams - where the quantum regime starts. He explains in Physics World why this is so challenging.

One of the most important correlation functions in physics, especially in cosmology, is the energy density, which describes how much energy is present at each point in spacetime due to matter fields. A key contribution to the energy density of the primordial universe comes from gravitational waves (GWs),…

Spectroscopic studies on fluorescent single molecules in organic condensed matter does not only provide information about the molecule itself, but also its near environment. By suppression of phonon-induced broadening of spectral lines through cooling to low temperatures, small changes in the spectral…

Physicists have manipulated light with large artificial atoms, so-called quantum dots. Before, this has only been done so well with actual atoms. It is an important step towards light-based quantum technology. Publication on August 30th in Nature Communications.