Leo Kouwenhoven (born ) is a Dutch physicist known for his research on

quantum computing Quantum computing is a type of computation whose operations can harness the phenomena of quantum mechanics, such as superposition, interference, and entanglement. Devices that perform quantum computations are known as quantum computers. Though ...

. Kouwenhoven grew up in

Pijnacker Pijnacker () is a town in the Dutch province of South Holland. It is bordered Zoetermeer to the north, by Nootdorp to the northwest, by Delfgauw to the southwest, by Rotterdam (specifically Overschie) to the south and by Berkel en Rodenrijs to th ...

, a village near

Delft Delft () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam, to the southeast, ...

, where his parents ran a farm. After losing the admission lottery for veterinary medicine he decided to study physics at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft). In 1992 he received his PhD ''

cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...

'' at TU Delft; his promoter was . In 1999 he became a professor at TU Delft. In 2007 he received the Spinoza Prize, the highest Dutch academic award. In April 2012 his TU Delft research group presented experimental results that provided potential "signatures" of

Majorana fermion A Majorana fermion (, uploaded 19 April 2013, retrieved 5 October 2014; and also based on the pronunciation of physicist's name.), also referred to as a Majorana particle, is a fermion that is its own antiparticle. They were hypothesised by Et ...

quasiparticles. These Majorana quasiparticles would be very stable, and therefore suitable for building a quantum computer. In 2018 his research group claimed to have proved the definitive existence of Majorana particles in a Nature publication. However, the results could not be reproduced by other scientists, and the article had to be retracted in 2021 due to "insufficient scientific rigour". The researchers had excluded data points that contradicted their claims, with the complete data not supporting their conclusions.

Personal life

Kouwenhoven has six sisters and is married to

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam The Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (abbreviated as ''VU Amsterdam'' or simply ''VU'' when in context) is a public research university in Amsterdam, Netherlands, being founded in 1880. The VU Amsterdam is one of two large, publicly funded research ...

professor Marleen Huysman.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kouwenhoven, Leo Living people 1963 births 20th-century Dutch physicists Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Spinoza Prize winners 21st-century Dutch physicists Delft University of Technology alumni People from Pijnacker-Nootdorp Academic staff of the Delft University of Technology