Albert Polman

Background

About Albert Polman

I am scientific group leader at AMOLF, an institute of the Dutch Research Counsel NWO. As a group leader I supervise a team of PhD students, postdocs and master students; together we develop novel ways to control and manipulate light at the nanoscale and develop new materials and concepts for efficient and sustainable solar energy conversion. I have founded the Light Management in Photovoltaic Materials (LMPV) program and was program director till 2024. LMPV brings together five research groups, 50 researchers altogether, that perform research centered around solar energy conversion. I am the Chair of the Board at SolarNL, the national program for research, innovation, and industrial development of solar technology, that aims to accelerate the energy transition and create new opportunities for the Dutch solar industry. It was awarded a 135 million euro subsidy from the Dutch National Growth Fund, and is expanding further. I have co-founded the microscopy company Delmic which now employs over 40 people, and has sold over 100 high-tech systems all over the world, based on an instrument developed in my laboratory at AMOLF. My research group has published more than 400 papers that are very well cited by our international peers. We won several prestigious awards, including the ENI Renewable Energy Award and the EPS Research into the Science of Light Prize. With the LMPV group leaders we won the NWO Team Science Award. I am member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Netherlands Academy of Engineering. I am working with a broad network of international collaborators, and enjoy traveling around the world to visit their labs and exchange ideas at international conferences.