Pieter Kruit is full professor of physics at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. He has had a chair in charged particle optics since 1989, heading a group with three permanent scientific staff, five technical staff and on average eight PhD students. He is (co-)author of over 150 publications in refereed international journals, author of 50 international patents, and supervisor of 30 PhD dissertations .
His research is always related to the development of electron- and ion-optical instruments, “trying to improve our eyes to look at the microscopic world and the hands that we use to create a new nano-world”. He has had research programs on nm-resolution electron spectroscopy, developments of low energy-spread electron- and ion sources and multi-beam optics for microscopy and lithography.
The main partner for his work on electron microscopy and focused ion beams is FEI Company, one of the world’s market leaders in this field. That cooperation now has an un-interrupted history of 25 years. For his work in electron lithography, there was no natural partner until he founded, with two of his graduates, MAPPER Lithography. This company has now grown to 200 employees and has the world’s most advanced high throughput electron beam lithography systems for next generation semiconductor patterning. Other industrial partners have been: Shell, Leica, Bell labs, Philips, ASML, TNO, KLA-Tencor, Shimadzu and Hitachi HHT. His involvement in trying to reduce magnetic disturbances from a planned tramway through the university has let to a novel current supply system to be implemented on the Delft campus. Based on his most recent ideas on combining electron microscopy with light microscopy, he recently started a new company with some of his coworkers and students. In 2011 he received the FOM “Valorization award” and in 2012 he was knighted in the order of the Dutch Lion.