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In: Corona, Energymaterials

Tristan Petit is a “Freigeist” Fellow of the Volkswagen Foundation and heads a group on nanocarbon materials at HZB. In the interview with Sophie Spangenberger, he talks about the gradual normalization after the lockdown. This post is for now the last one about the corona period at HZB. How did you experience the confinement and what was the first thing you did when you arrived at the office? I started the lockdown with a move. So at first I was more stressed by the fear of not being able to move than by the corona virus. We spent the first few weeks confined surrounded byRead More →

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In: Energymaterials, International, Lightsources, Summerstudents

Thermoplastic ionomer materials such as Nafion do have many talents: they can be used as membranes for proton exchange in fuel cells, but they have also attracted attention as shape memory materials: Via external stimuli such as heat or an electric field, it is possible to trigger a change in shapes. Applications in textiles, biomedicine, aerospace, sensors and coatings are possible. Nafion: a membrane with shape memory Nafion is one of those materials: as a membrane in a fuel cell, its high proton conductivity allows a fast pass of hydrogen ions (protons). And its internal shape plays a crucial role. Now a team from Brazil hasRead More →

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In: Careers, Energymaterials

An unusual science conference (not only) for young female scientists: April 29-30, 2018 Near the city of Goslar in the beautiful Harz mountains, an unusual science meeting is organised. The location is the Mönchehaus Museum (www.moenchehaus.de). I was attending this conference some years ago and I can really recommend it. The speakers are exclusively very renowned women in materials science, heading institutes at MIT, MPG or other prestigious research institutions. And multiple occasions are given to get into exchange with them. Discussions were open and vivid, and I guess many young women got motivated to strive for a scientific career. The organiser, Prof Katarina Al-Shamery, CarlRead More →

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In: Energymaterials, Lightsources

Nanoparticles are tiny, really tiny. Only a fraction of a micrometer or some nanometers in size. And only some thousands of molecules strong,  their properties can differ dramatically from those of their larger cousins. Titaniumdioxide, a whitish powder, can form such nanoparticles. In water, these nanoparticles can act as catalysts, when excited with light. and facilitate water splitting or water remediation. However, what happens exactly when TiO2 and water get into contact and which impact this is having on the electronic structure of TiO2 remained in the dark: it is very tricky to probe nanoparticle–water interface experimentally and to observe changes. Soft X-rays at BESSYRead More →

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In: Conference, Energymaterials

Last week 50 scientists from all over the world have gathered at BESSY II. Physicists or chemists, experimentalists or pure theoreticians. It was an interdisciplinary crowd, discussing openly and in an extraordinary friendly way about new and sometimes hypothetical processes in hybrid nanomaterials, how to model them and how to explore and characterizethem experimentally. Freigeist fellow Dr. Annika Bande has invited to this big workshop, sponsored by Volkswagen Foundation. Together with her young team, the theoretical chemist is modelling the dynamics of electrons in semiconductor materials , which upon miniaturization give rise to so called quantum dots. The result: Exchange and new ideas Her goalRead More →

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In: Summerstudents

For a long time, cybernetics was only seen in sci-fi (cyborgs like RoboCop and human enhancements like Inspector Gadget). A current limitation of electric prosthetics, is the human interface. Where the body rejects foreign objects. My project has been investigating a novel self-assembling material nanomaterial, acetylated β3-peptides. These have been demonstrated to assemble into fibers, and when coordinated to metals have been found to metallic like conductivity. As these mimic biological architecture, this material may be biocompatible, and as it forms 2D surface coverage, it’s possible to use it as to transport energy along molecular wires. β3-peptides represent an opportunity for the investigation of aRead More →