After the awarding of his doctorate, he then spent one year working in the United States of America as a fellow of the Niels Stensen Foundation before returning to the Netherlands as a member of the scientific staff of the Philips Research Laboratories in Eindhoven.

He joined the Lorentz Institute for theoretical physics at Leiden University in 1991.

In 1993, he shared the Royal/Shell prize for "the discovery and explanation of quantum effects in the electrical conduction in mesoscopic systems".

[3] In 2006 he was honored with the AkzoNobel Science Award "for his pioneering work in the field of nanoscience".

[4] He was granted an honorary doctorate from the Bogolyubov Institute for Theoretical Physics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.