The MSc programme Physics offers 5 research-oriented specialisations where you can focus on Theoretical Physics, Quantum Matter and Optics, Biological and Soft Matter, or Cosmology. You can also combine Physics with education, management or science communication.

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

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.

The Joan van der Waals colloquium is an ongoing bi-weekly lecture series.

In this thesis we use Josephson and noise scanning tunneling microscopy for the study of conventional, unconventional (iron-based) and disordered superconductors. On the one hand, Josephson scanning tunneling microscopy allows us to directly visualize the superfluid density with high spatial resolut…

The interest of this thesis lies in spin transport in normal metals and superconducting half-metallic junctions.

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

Patterned detectors are an existing technology that can be found in almost all color cameras.

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.

This dissertation is an experimental study of laser-generated, atmospheric pressure, transient toroidal helium plasmas.

On Monday, Minister of Education, Culture and Science Robbert Dijkgraaf attended the start of Orientation Week Leiden (OWL), the introduction week for international students at Leiden University. He welcomed the students and spoke with them about their ambitions and the problems they face.

This thesis consists of two subjects, that are both a consequence of radiation pressure.

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.

From Afghanistan to South Africa: 1,144 international students, including refugees from Syria, are taking part in the Orientation Week Leiden.

The main objective of this thesis was to develop clinically relevant survival models for patients with high-grade soft tissue sarcoma of the extremities, in particular the development and validation of prediction models for use in clinical practice.

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This thesis focuses on amyloid proteins, a class of proteins that convert into amyloid fibrils.

A plasma is an ionized gas with very low electrical resistivity. As such, magnetic field lines are 'frozen in' and move with the fluid. Magnetic field lines that are linked, knotted and tangled, cannot be undone by the fluid motions.

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.

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.

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

Leiden has a strong tradition in theoretical physics, thoroughly linked with experimental disciplines.

This thesis describes the Multi-site All-Sky CAmeRA (MASCARA), which consists of two small robotic telescope designed to detect exoplanets around the brightest stars in the sky.

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.

Alumni event, Lunch webinar

To be eligible for Research in Physics, Quantum Matter and Optics at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

Tjerk Oosterkamp's group is conducting what is perhaps the coldest research in the world. The researchers have cooled a sensor to below 2 millikelvin - almost as cold as absolute zero. This allows them to make extremely sensitive measurements. PhD candidate Jaimy Plugge helped build the setup: ‘We are…

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.

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.

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.

Between 16 May and 4 June our first ‘Introduction to Ancient Egypt’ course took place with a group of highly motivated students.

Lecture

The focus of the dissertation

In this thesis, we show how MRFM can usefully contribute to the field of condensed-matter.

Surface plasmons (SPs) are surface waves at the interface between a dielectric and a good metal, and are formed by the interaction between light and the free electrons at the metal-dielectric interface. They provide strong field confinement for optical fields, opening new possibilities for enhanced…

n this PhD thesis, the recombination of different atomic lattices in stacked 2D materials such as twisted bilayer graphene is studied. Using the different possibilities of Low-Energy Electron Microscopy (LEEM), the domain forming between the two atomic layers with small differences is studied.

In condensed matter systems electron-electron interactions, negligible in everyday metals, can dramatically alter the electronic behavior of the system. Examples of such altered behavior include high-temperature superconductivity and modulation of the electron density.

The thesis describes the use of electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy, in continuous wave and pulse modes, to address the interaction of α-Synuclein (αS) with membranes and the aggregation of αS.

This thesis presents insights from our study of various correlated electron systems with a scanning tunneling microscope (STM). In ordinary metals, electron-electron interactions exist, but get substantially screened due to the sheer number of electrons.

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Conference

More than 5,000 exoplanets have been found over the past couple of decades. These exoplanets show a tremendous diversity, ranging from scorching hot Jupiters, common super-Earths, to widely separated super-Jupiters on the planet/brown dwarf boundary.