The 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 atomicdeposition control and which thereby exhibit novel and unprecedented properties. His research is based in large part on inventing designerinorganic (tailor-made) nanomaterials that are prepared by atomic precision. He has (co)authored over 300 papers in refereed journals, holds an h-index of 50, 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 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-byblock 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-toone, atomic-scale control of the constituting layers.