Master thesis subjects 2026-2027
The Department of Solid State Sciences offers several master thesis subjects every year. An overview of the topics for the academic year 2025-2026 is listed below. Click on a subject to see more details and don't hesitate to contact us if you have further questions. Some of the topics were highlighted by several of our PhD students, and you can watch their pitches (only in Dutch).
CoCooN
(conformal coatings for nanomaterials, surface modification, surface physics, nano-electronics en energy applications)
Advanced synchrotron-based characterization
Gaining fundamental insight in Atomic Layer Deposition
Materials and processes for microelectronics applications
- Photo-assisted atomic layer deposition for microelectronics: patterned growth enabled by photons
- High-throughput characterization of Ru/RuOx passivation strategies for microelectronics
- Metal silicide formation for microelectronic device contacts: A combinatorial deposition and in-situ characterization approach
- Atomic layer deposition of metals for applications in the semiconductor industry
Materials and processes for energy applications
- Protection of lithium anodes by atomic layer deposition of metal oxides
- Protection of sodium anodes by atomic layer deposition
- Surface physics of electrodes for green hydrogen production
- Interface engineering for next generation solar cells using atomic layer deposition
- Deposition of high-quality thin films for industrial energy applications
Mirror coatings for gravitational wave detectors
- Coatings with atomic precision for enabling the observation of Gravitational Waves
- Understanding Mirror Coating Thermal Noise in Gravitational Wave Detectors Through Molecular Dynamics Simulations and Time Correlation Functions
DiSC
(study of defects in semiconductors and research of paramagnetic defects in solids)
- Active Eu-centers in radiation dosimeter materials
- Cu-Doped ZnS Nanoparticles with Photochromic Response for Adaptive Solar Radiation Management
DRAFT
(surface physics and thin films)
- Measuring Momentum Flux: The Impact of Reflected Neutrals on Palladium Thin Film Nucleation
- The influence of the direction of reflected neutrals on film growth
DyNaMat
(dynamics of functional nanomaterials)
- A nanomagnetic realisation of a Brownian motor
- Extracting microscopic magnetic mineral structures from macroscopic magnetic measurements of soils
- Implicit solvers for magneto-elastic micromagnetic simulations
- Modelling current-induced switching in non-collinear antiferromagnets
- Single particle characterization using quantum sensing scanning magnetometry
- Spin wave propagation in polycrystalline antiferromagnets
LumiLab
(luminescence, optical spectroscopy, photocatalysis and switchable materials)
- Charge and energy transfer in persistent phosphors
- Lighting the Way: Radioluminescent Nanoparticles for Smarter Dosimetry
- Probing Charge Trapping and Divalent Lanthanides in Persistent Luminescent Phosphors
- Visualizing vibrational Chladni patterns by means of mechanoluminescent materials
- Cu-Doped ZnS Nanoparticles with Photochromic Response for Adaptive Solar Radiation Management
- Excited-state dynamics of lanthanide impurities in crystals
- Quantum mechanical view on ultrafast scintillators
The Department of Solid State Sciences presents the Willy Dekeyser student award to an excellent student who stands out with research in the field of solid-state physics, performed during the Master thesis in the lab founded by Willy Dekeyser (check out the slide).