You’ve been accepted! Leiden University looks forward to welcoming you as a new student. Your next step is to prepare for your studies. Below you can find some tips to help you get a head start as you embark on your studies at Leiden University.

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…

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.

Light can be used to apply forces on single cells. Focused lasers have been used by physicists to tweeze particles and to manipulate them. These so called “optical tweezers” can be used as mechanical phenotyping tools for characterising the mechanics of materials and living objects.

NWO has awarded a €392k Projectruimte grant to physicists Koenraad Schalm and Jan Zaanen to study ‘strange metals’. These materials are alleged to follow the bizarre laws of quantum mechanics even at everyday length scales.

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,…

The long-held desire - to link structure directly to function and to explain molecular mechanisms based on basic chemical or physical principles - is finally coming closer, satisfying not only our scientific curiosity but also offering new solutions to the many challenges in the field of health, energy…

The High-Tech Innovation specialisation consists of a 60 EC track alongside the students' core MSc programme: Astronomy, Chemistry, Computer Science, Mathematics and Physics.

Promotor: Prof.dr. T.J. Aartsma, Co-promotor: R.N. Frese

Promotor: M.A.G.J. Orrit

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 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.

In a recent Physics World podcast, PhD candidate Felix Frohnert from Leiden University explains how his team uncovered hidden connections in scientific literature by using machine learning routines. With this information, it’s possible to predict promising new research ideas in quantum physics. Listen…

The programme will give you the opportunity to choose from a broad range of topics to study. You will be part of an international multidisciplinary research team at the LION.

Get to know us through our online and in-person events for prospective students!

Are you interested in taking up an extra challenge during your master’s programme? Have you thought about applying for our Summer School programme or are you interested in developing your personal leadership style?

NWO has assigned Physics Vrije Programma grants to five collaborations of physicists. Leiden University is involved in three of them.

Biological polymers, including proteins and the genome, undergo folding processes crucial for their proper functioning. Even slight changes in the folding structure of these biopolymers can have significant implications, leading to the development of various pathological conditions, such as neurodegenerative…

The Leiden Institute of Physics (LION) is the coordinating partner in the Qluster research project, which was awarded a 2,9 million euro FET Open grant by the European Union. The three-year project, which started on 1 December 2019, aims to produce many photon entanglement to aid quantum communication…

To mark the university’s 450th anniversary, the Leiden Discoveries science route has been updated and was relaunched on the Night of Discoveries. New signs in town and a revamped website tell Leiden residents and visitors the stories of the city’s spectacular discoveries.

The project has been done in the Quantum Optics group under the supervision of Dr. Jan Willem Dalhuisen. The title of the presentation is: ''Hopfions in curved spacetime.

The Physics and Education master specialisation gives you the opportunity to combine physics research with an excellent education in becoming a physics teacher.

The programme will give you the opportunity to choose from a broad range of topics to study. You will be part of an international multidisciplinary research team at our institute.

World-class research is integral part of the master’s education. You obtain a Physics degree from an institute with an international reputation. Research in this programme is fundamental and curiosity-driven.

The Physics and SCS master specialisation gives you the opportunity to combine Physics research with different aspects of science communication.

On 9 September, in the presence of King Willem Alexander, Secretary of State Sander Dekker presented the Spinoza Prize to four researchers, including two researchers from Leiden: archaeologist Corinne Hofman and physicist Dirk Bouwmeester. In the Nieuwe Kerk in The Hague, they unveiled their plans for…

Gold nanoparticles show surprisingly strong interactions with light in the visible range, which can be divided into scattering, absorption, and photoluminescence.

Improving healthcare with our scientific discoveries: that is the goal of pharmaceutical research at Leiden University. And there’s a lot involved in that. Our research starts with the discovery of the effect achieved by a particular substance, and sometimes continues all the way through to the development…