User:DaveBnano/sandbox

Dave H.A. Blank was born in 1953 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. He started his studies on the primary technical school (LTS), followed by the secondary technical school (MTS) and higher technical school (HTS). After his masters in Applied Physics, he received in 1991 his PhD in Physics from the University of Twente, Netherlands for his dissertation on High-Tc thin films prepared by laser ablation: an experimental study, under supervision of prof. dr. Horst Rogalla. In 1992 he became assistant professor in Rogalla’s group. After a research fellowship at Stanford in the group of prof. Malcolm Beasley and prof. Theodore Geballe in 1998, he was appointed as associate professor and programme director on the materials science of interfaces in the MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology at the University of Twente. Since October 2002 he is full professor in Inorganic Materials Science at the same university. From January 1, 2007 he is the Scientific Director of MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente. MESA+ host over 500 scientists with an annual budget over 50 MEuro. Dave H.A. Blank’s Inorganic Materials Science research group focuses on growth studies, deposition and structuring techniques, and properties of complex materials, especially oxides. The group developed strategies to build, in an atomic layer-by-layer fashion, inorganic materials by true atomic-deposition control and which thereby exhibit novel and unprecedented properties. His research is based in large part on inventing designer-inorganic (tailor-made) nanomaterials that are prepared by atomic precision. He has (co)authored over 280 papers in refereed journals, holds an h-index of 37, and supervised 34 PhD candidates. Together with prof. Guus Rijnders the first time-resolved high pressure RHEED-system was developed, operating in-situ during pulsed laser deposition at high pressures up to 100 Pa. With this PLD system several new growth phenomena have been observed, leading to new growth techniques of complex materials, like pulsed laser interval deposition. Furthermore, the systems can be used to study and realize block-by-block deposition of (artificial) complex materials. The latter has helped to create an entire new branch of science in inorganic materials which rests on the exact and precise control of atomic arrangements through building structures in a bottom-up fashion and having direct one-to-one, atomic-scale control of the constituting layers. Many of his latest discoveries and contributions have enabled the synthesis of materials, allowing for practical applications in the fabrication of artificial high-temperature superconductors and ferroelectric superlattices. At this present time, many of the structures are being used in the fabrication of two-dimensional electron gasses in the field of interface engineering of complex oxide heterostructures. Nowadays, the field of study is considered as a key research area for future oxide device developments. These scientific achievements were honoured as one of the most remarkable scientific breakthroughs of 2007 by an expert scientific panel of jurists who valued the interface engineering in complex oxide heterostructures, which showed the ability to make novel combinations of oxides that can outperform semiconductor structures. Contributions in this field are reported in, e.g., Nature Mat. 5 (2006) 556, Nature Mat. 6 (2007) 493, Nature Mat. 7 (2008) 270, Adv. Mat. 21 (2009) 1665.

In 2002 he was awarded with the VICI laureate of the Dutch Science Foundation for his work on artificial materials for nanoscale devices.

In 2004 he became Flagship Captain of nano-electronic materials science of the NanoNed programme (Dutch initiative on nanotechnology). From 2007 on he was member of the board of governors of NanoNed.

In December 2007 he became member of the Swedish Royal Academic of Science Gothenburg, nominated by Chalmers University.

He was the author of the Strategic Research Agenda (2008) of the Netherlands Nano Initiative, as representative of NanoNed, FOM and STW.

In 2009 he became chairman of the steering committee FES 2009 initiative High Tech Systems and Materials, with a total budget of 250 million Euro.

From November 2010 on he is chairman of the executive Board of the FES programme, called NanoNextNL.

In February 2011 he has been appointed as Captain of Science of the Topsector High Tech Systems and Materials by the Dutch Government.

In 2011 he was awarded by STW to become Simon Stevin Meester 2011, for his achievements in technical sciences. The award comes with a prize of 500.000 Euro.

In 2012 he was appointed Advisory Council for Science and Technology Policy (AWTi) that advises the Dutch government and parliament on policy in the areas of scientific research, technological development and innovation.