On Friday April 25th, in the Theater Diligentia in The Hague, Cees Dekker and Leo Kouwenhoven have been decorated 'Knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion.' They were presented with the Order for their pioneering scientific work of great social relevance. Cees Dekker is known for his research on carbon nanotubes, single-molecule biophysics, and nanobiology. He and his research group currently are studying solid state nanopores, biophysics of chromatin maintenance, biophysics and evolution of bacteria. Cees Dekker is the chair of the Delft-Leiden 'Frontiers of NanoScience' program (NanoFront, NWO/OCW).
Leo Kouwenhoven is known for his work on discovering signatures of Majorana Fermions and his groundbreaking work on so-called spin qubits. In the Kouwenhoven lab, Leo Kouwenhoven and his team work on low-dimensional nano-scale semiconductor systems. Their research focuses on basic properties of these systems as well as on possible applications in quantum information processing and novel opto-electronic devices.

Casimir congratulates both KAVLI-professors with this special recognition.