In 1995 he obtained his PhD in
Johannes P. Woerdman's lab at Leiden University with the thesis Quantum mechanics and classical optics.[1] The next year, while he was a post-doctoral researcher in the group of
Anton Zeilinger, he performed one of the first demonstrations of
quantum teleportation using
photons.[2] His current areas of research include
solid-state cavity quantum electrodynamics, knotted states of light,[3] micro-optomechanical systems,[4][5] and DNA-templated optical emitters.
He was awarded the 2014
Spinoza Prize, the highest scientific award in the Netherlands.[6]