Striving for research with real impact
Mohamed Abdelkhalik has always aspired to obtain a PhD in close collaboration with industry. Last June, he defended his thesis on work he did together with Lumileds, a global company that develops and manufactures innovative lighting solutions. His PhD project not only led to scientific publications but also to a whopping four patents.
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Blessing in disguise
Mohamed Abdelkhalik
PhD candidate
Abdelkhalik started his PhD research, aimed at improving the efficiency of LEDs, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic when the labs were closed. ‘That turned out to be a blessing in disguise. At home, I did a lot of simulations to optimize our structures. So, when the labs re-opened, I had a myriad of designs to test.’ Eventually, he ended up with a system consisting of a
metasurface on top of a quantum well that showed significant enhancements in light extraction efficiency. And his design allowed for beaming the light in specific directions.
Even though Abdelkhalik performed his experiments at TU/e, he had biweekly meetings with Lumileds and AMOLF to discuss his progress and possible next steps. ‘In order to make a real-world impact with this research, we focused on the materials the company uses, and we developed methods to enhance the performance of their current devices.’
“I was able to do it all, from simulations to fabrication and characterization. And the icing on the cake was that my work resulted in something that has a great chance of ending up in an actual application.”
Mohamed Abdelkhalik | PhD candidate
Doing it all
The collaboration resulted in four patents filed by the company, for one of which Abdelkhalik is the first inventor. ‘This was a very nice experience for me,’ the doctor now looks back with satisfaction. ‘I was able to do it all, from simulations to fabrication and characterization. And the icing on the cake was that my work resulted in something that has a great chance of ending up in an actual application.’
Since he liked working on applied research for industrial applications so much, the ambitious doctor decided to continue his career in a similar direction. ‘At the moment, I am working as a postdoctoral scientist at ARCNL, where I am developing digital holography microscopy in close collaboration with ASML. I really enjoy diving into the fundamentals of optics and photonics in a project where the end goal is to make an actual impact.’