Our group has a long tradition in developing Demonstrator Devices, filing Patents, and Transferring Knowledge and Technology to companies. We have co-founded a company, Delmic BV.
Start-up company Delmic
The Angle-Resolved cathodoluminescence (ARCIS) microscope that was developed in our group has been redesigned into a commercial instrument that is now successfully brought on the market by Delmic, a company co-founded by Albert Polman and collaborators from the Technical University Delft in 2012. Since 2014, Delmic has sold over 100 SPARC instruments to laboratories and companies allover the world.
Original CL instrument in our group Commercial CL SPARC system sold by Delmic
In 2017-2018, together with Delmic and ThermoFisher/FEI we have developed a time-resolved CL microscope that creates 2D images of CL lifetime and g(2) photon correlation spectra. This new instrument will be presented at the International Microscopy Conference in Sydney (2018). The first instruments have been sold to customers by Delmic/ThermoFisher. ThermoFisher sells the ultrafast beam blanker that we developed together to customers in semiconductor metrology. An independent analysis by Roland Berger shows that the sales of commercial microscopy products by Delmic and ThermoFisher, based on inventions and development in our group, add 5 M€ to the Dutch economy every year.
Presentation of time-resolved CL microscope by AMOLF, Delmic, and ThermoFisher project team (May 2018).
Industrial collaborations – knowledge transfer
Our group has, or has had, research contracts with the following companies in the high-tech field.:
- Delmic: development of cathodoluminescence microscopy (2012-present)
- ThermoFisher/FEI Company: cathodoluminescence microscopy; focused ion beam nanofabrication (2005-present)
- SCIL Imprint Solutions: soft nano-imprint lithography (2016-present)
- Philips Research: nanophotonics for solid-state light sources (2005-present)
- ASML: development of a roadmap for nanolithography for photovoltaics (2013)
- Symmorphix: planar optical amplifiers (1999-2001)
- AKZO-Nobel: polymer optical amplifiers (1996-2000)
- ST Microelectronics: silicon-based light sources (1995-2002)
- PTT/KPN: optical doping, planar optical amplifiers (1991-1994)
- AT&T Bell Laboratories: optical doping, integrated optics (1989-1991)
Demonstrator devices
Examples of demonstrator devices created in our group:
- (1) Transparent conducting coatings for silicon heterojunction solar cells using Ag nanowire arrays
- (2) Single-step soft-imprinted large-area nanopatterned anti-reflection coating
- (3) Broadband anti-reflection coating for Si solar cells using Si Mie resonator metasurfaces
- (4) Light trapping coatings for thin-film CIGS solar cells using dielectric nanoparticle metasurfaces
- (5) Light trapping coatings for thin-film silicon solar cells using metal nanoparticle metasurfaces
- (6) Erbium-doped infrared microcavity laser on silicon
- (7) Erbium-doped silicon infrared LEDs
- (8) Erbium-doped planar optical amplifier (commercialized by Symmorphix in 2001)
(1)
(2) 
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
(8)