Today Aafke van den Berg (Delft), Tim Baart (Delft), Robert Ietswaart (Leiden) and Nico Verhart (Leiden) won the Hendrik Casimir prize 2010. The winners are excellent MSc students with a promising research career ahead of them.

The prize is based on the revenues from a donation given by the late Hendrik Casimir’s wife the physicist Josina Casimir-Jonker. (more information)

The selection was made by a committee existing of dr. Jos Thijssen (Delft), prof. Jan Aarts (Leiden) and dr. Reyer Jochemsen (Leiden). Some comments about these students:

‘I am deeply impressed about Nico; he almost has mastered a very complex experiment (optical trapping of gold nanorods). ‘Nico is very enthusiastic and thinks along, is creative and has an understanding of experimental problems.’

‘Robert did his final presentation about a subject of his own choice ’Communication of classical information through a quantum channel’. This is a very difficult, mathematical complex subject; nevertheless Robert did this very well. I gave him a 9 which is the highest mark I ever gave for a lecture.’

‘Tim collaborated in research on a current topic, ‘transition voltage spectroscopy’. He has shown critical thinking and knows to present his ideas in discussions in a polite, but self-confident way. His presentation was clear and mature. Also he is doing the Casimir special pre-PhD track’

‘Aafke is a student who not only obtains very good results in regular courses but also shows initiative and independence in solving scientific problems which I’m sure will make her a valuable scientist. Also she can communicate well about her work. Therefore, I have no hesitation to recommend her for the Hendrik Casimir Prize 2010.’