Home - Institute for Materials and X-Ray Physics

Welcome to the Institute for Materials and X-Ray Physics at Technische Universität Hamburg - TUHH, Germany

Illustration of our research topics

We engage in fundamental research in condensed-matter physics and on novel functional materials. We explore experimentally the multiscale interplay of structure, dynamics and function of matter and profit thereby from the vivid and inspiring Natural, Materials and X-Ray Photon Science environment of the Hamburg metropolitan area, encompassing Hamburg University (UHH), the Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht for Coastal and Materials Research (HZG), and the European X-Ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL). Our institute at Technische Universität Hamburg (TUHH) is linked via a joined research group on High-Resolution X-Ray Analytics with Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY and with the Center for Hybrid Nanostructures (CHyN) of Hamburg University. We are a member of the Center for Intergrated Multiscale Materials Systems CIMMS, the Centre for Advanced Materials (ZHM Hamburg) and of the Collaborative Research Initiative SFB 986 “Tailor-Made Multi-Scale Materials Systems M³”. Our research projects focus on how condensed matter behaves in extreme spatial confinement, most prominently in nanoporous media, and on how to employ this fundamental knowledge for the design and fabrication of advanced materials.

Feel invited to read more about our research and teaching activities, to browse our publication list or to get an impression of our group life (group members & alumni and events).

At present our main efforts are directed at an understanding of:

Self-assembly, phase transitions, and dynamics of soft molecular condensed matter in geometrical confinement.

Adsorption-induced deformation and elastocapillarity upon condensation of liquids in porous media, most prominently hierarchical porous silicon and silica.

Fluid transport and rheology of liquids in porous media, in particular in nanoporous solids (Nanofluidics).

Design principles for mechanical, fluidic and photonic metamaterials based on combinations of porous solids with functional soft molecular fillings (electrolytes, (bio-)polymers, liquid crystals).

The fundamental structural and statistical properties of fluid interfaces , that is the relationship between the thermodynamics, the microscopic structure of these interfaces and their microscopic and macroscopic hydrodynamics.

Liquid wetting and spreading at planar interfaces.

News

14.06.2021 Nanostructuring of materials leads to completely new, often surprising properties; this makes them highly interesting for new fields of application and technologies. However, whether these materials can be processed into robust components and thus find their way into applications depends very much on their mechanical properties. These are usually particularly difficult to determine without changing them through the measuring process or even destroying the materials. Within a German-French research team we have now developed a non-contact and non-destructive measurement method using laser ultrasound in such a way that the elastic properties of nanostructured materials can be characterised in detail. The results are reported in an article entitled "Laser-excited elastic guided waves reveal the complex mechanics of nanoporous silicon" in the journal Nature Communications (see also the DESY/TUHH press release: German/English).

11.05.2021 The article "Synergistic and Competitive Adsorption of Hydrophilic Nanoparticles and Oil-Soluble Surfactants at the Oil–Water Interface" has been published in Langmuir. An illustration from the article is featured on the cover of the current Langmuir issue.

10.05.2021 Lars Dammann's PhD project featured - The PhD project of Lars Damman on "Water and Hydrocarbons in Confined Geometries: Correlating High Resolution X-Ray Diffraction with Molecular Dynamics Simulation" within DASHH is featured by the Helmholtz Association, see here.

25.02.2021 Sustainable harvesting of electrical energy with nanoporous materials - Can phase transitions of water in nanopores be used to generate electrical energy on a larger scale? This is what we, within an international team of researchers, will be investigating in the European Union-funded research project "Energy harvesting via wetting/drying cycles with nanoporous electrodes (EHAWEDRY)", see additional details here (English/German).

09.02.2021 Second-order nonlinear optics, in particular Second-Harmonic Generation (SHG) is the base for a large variety of devices aimed at the active manipulation of light. Within an European collaboration we demonstrate that embedding chromophores in conical silica nanopores results in a photonic metamaterial exhibiting SHG, see the article entitled "Anisotropic confinement of chromophores induces second-order nonlinear optics in a nanoporous photonic metamaterial", published in Optics Letters.

01.12.2020 Optofluidic study on liquid imbibition dynamics entitled "Precursor Film Spreading during Liquid Imbibition in Nanoporous Photonic Crystals" has been published in Physical Review Letters. The paper resulted from a collaboration with Luisa Cencha, Claudio Berli and Raul Urteaga from Argentina.